Inquiry and Retrieval
by arioso dolente
Summary: When odd things happen around her, what does young Hermione Granger do? What does she ever do? Research. Of course, she hadn't counted on magical creature wrangling being part of that. Pre-Hogwarts, slight crossover with Young Wizards.
1. Initial Observations

_A/N: This story is a very _slight_ crossover with Diane Duane's Young Wizards books, a truly excellent series that I encourage all Harry Potter fans to check out. However, if you have not done so, don't be discouraged: the crossover aspect of this story is minimal, and may be freely ignored with no detriment to the story. This story is gen, pre-Hogwarts, and follows the hallowed fanfic tradition of If It Wasn't Specifically Contradicted in Canon, Then It Totally Could Have Happened._

* * *

><p>- 1. Initial Observations -<p>

It is not I who seek the young fool;  
>The young fool seeks me.<p>

-_I_ _Ching_, hexagram 4, mountain over water

What you expect differs from what _is_:  
>the dragon awakens, indifferent to you.<p>

-_The Book of Night with Moon, _xx/2

* * *

><p>Aman Singh had never made it his business to pry into the affairs of strangers. However, these two would insist on making it especially difficult for him. He shook his head and resumed sorting the empty glass bottles to be recycled.<p>

His restaurant was a tiny open-air place, with long vinyl-covered tables and benches under a tarp ceiling. Piles of paper napkins were strewn across the tables along with bottle openers for his bottles of soda. The tables were coated with a fine layer of dust and grit from the streets outside, and a radio blared some nondescript film music of the sort the kids were always listening to.

At least Aman couldn't understand most of what these two said; English was rarely spoken here, in this tiny village beside the Himalayas, far removed from the main tourist paths. Despite himself, he had to wonder what they were doing here. They were pale weedy English types, he could tell, but he couldn't figure out what the black cloaks were for, or why they hadn't seemed to need any luggage when they had checked into his inn adjoining the restaurant. He carried his load of bottles to the little room beside the kitchen, frowning as the voices of his only customers rose in agitation, carrying easily to his ears.

"You _idiot_."

Will Pygott glared at his partner. "What? What's the problem? This is at least as good, innit?"

Ulysses Fletcher reached over and cuffed him on the ear, hard. Will cringed. "You _idiot_, we were supposed to be looking for Demiguises! _Not_ for any random . . . is that what I think it is?"

Will grinned roguishly. "Depends what you think it is." He soon regretted his flippancy when the comment earned him another cuff on the ear.

"Don't you _ever_ think? Couldn't you just try it, just as an experiment? What in the name of hippogriffs is _wrong_ with you?" Ulysses gestured loosely to the cloth bundle in Will's hands, as if in irrefutable proof of his idiocy.

Will rubbed his ear and scowled. "You know, you didn't have to hit me so hard, 'Lyss. You're not my mum."

Ulysses lunged forward and actually growled. "How many times have I told you not to call me that! And apparently _someone_ had to. Don't you know what that thing is?"

Will straightened proudly. "Yes, I do." He caressed the bundle. "A fortune on Knockturn Alley. I know alchemists who would pay dearly for one of these beauties."

Ulysses crossed his arms, unimpressed. "I'm glad to hear it. Now, know why none of those alchemists are here right now to go fetch one?"

"Er—no?"

"Let me tell you, then." Ulysses got up from the table at which the two sat and stalked over, menace etched in every inch of his black cloak, his lean, ragged, dirty face. Will stood nervously, fidgeting, as Ulysses stepped up to him, their noses nearly touching. "Those things are some of the meanest creatures if you cross 'em. When they find out what you took—" Ulysses stopped abruptly. "Don't tell me you took more than one."

Will backed up half a step. "All right, I won't?" He was prepared for the cuff he received for that answer. It still hurt, though. "Ow!"

"Where. Are. They," said Ulysses, sitting down again, ignoring Will's wounded look.

Will sat hesitantly, eyes wary for another attack. "All right, calm down—"

"Say it, and you wake up tomorrow with three nostrils."

Will winced. "—_Ulysses_, fine." He glanced around. "All right, that old Muggle is gone." He reached into an inside pocket of his cloak and pulled out, improbably, three more football-sized wrapped objects identical to the one now sitting on the table.

"THREE? You have THREE more? Are you INSANE?"

Will leaned forward hurriedly. "Shut it, do you want the Muggle to come back? What's the matter? I have room for them. I'll carry them home; more Galleons for me anyway."

"I don't care about the bloody Galleons, Will!"

Will grinned again. "Think you might be in the wrong business, then." He was able to duck the next blow.

Ulysses pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled deeply. "I would _think_ that you would care about more than that too. Considering that once they find out, they're going to fillet you for what you did."

Will scoffed.

"They will. Apparently you haven't heard the stories. Or why the Ministry classifies them high as they do."

Will's expression was sulky. "Like I care about what the Ministry thinks. Load of bumblers."

Ulysses straightened on the bench. "Maybe. Ministry's pretty clueless about a lot of things, most days. But I think even they'd notice the ruddy creatures rampaging around from chasing you around half the continent, after what you did." He spread his fingers wide. "But what do I know."

Will paled. "Really?"

"Really, Will. You've really stepped in it this time."

"But—" Will scooped the three objects he'd pulled out back into his cloak pocket, glancing about warily. "Couldn't I just . . . I dunno, bring them back?"

Ulysses snorted. "Hardly. You want to go toward them now, now that you probably made them angry?"

Will swallowed. "What do we do?"

"_We_ run. We get the hell back home and outrun the things. No time for Demiguises now, or anytime soon, since they'll probably recognize us if we come back. Hope those Galleons are worth it."

The clink of Aman's bottles was the only discernible sound after that.

* * *

><p>It had happened again.<p>

Hermione Granger frowned over her notebook from her spot in the beech tree and considered her problem. One hand tapped a ballpoint pen against her cheek and left a cipher of black marks, a fact to which she, in her agitation, was oblivious.

"So," she said to herself—an ingrained habit, and one that earned her much ridicule in school— "another event for the list. But what does it _mean?" _The pen turned and circled something sharply in the notebook, as if to emphasize her puzzlement.

This time it had been at school, as so many of them were. Sarah Thorne had teased her about her braces, and Hermione had felt her vision fog, and—it had happened. Bees flew out of Sarah's startled mouth and she had run away, crying. The teacher had dismissed it as unlucky coincidence—the bees had only been nearby already, out in the schoolyard, it had been a sort of illusion, but Hermione knew better. She knew that somehow, she had done it.

The time before that, she'd been doing her maths homework and became so frustrated over a problem that she'd tried to check it with a calculator, only to have the device blow up with a small puff of smoke. Another time, she had been chased by the neighbors' angry bulldog while walking home from school. She'd wound up at the top of the old oak nearby, but try as she might, she could not recall actually climbing it. The list went on: prematurely blown-out lightbulbs, small objects rattling in their places on desks and tables, a pencil doodle in her homework that animated itself (and to her horror, had stayed that way for hours, so that she had feared having to turn it in). And many, many more. They were all there, cataloged in Hermione's small blue notebook, because she didn't understand them, and if there was one thing she hated, it was not being able to figure something out.

They'd been happening for as long as she could remember, and at first, when she was very young, she'd taken it for something normal. But Hermione's mind was sharp, wary, and it quickly grasped that this was something normal children did not do. A part of her knew, though she feared acknowledging it, that those mysteriously vibrating pencils could fly if she only chose to make them, that these sorts of things were in her power, though never considered within the province of human ability. She knew it, and so she had to know what it meant.

Her pen paused, tapping the latest entry in her list. She drew a wavy line between the items and frowned. What connected these things? What ability, that could make small objects move without her touching them, make conjured bees fly out of Sarah Thorne's mouth, or transport her to the top of a tree without having to climb it? And, if she was the one doing these things, why couldn't she control them consciously? "It doesn't make any _sense_," she said.

"Hermione!"

She lifted her head, peering through the dense leaves to see her father at the back door of the house. "It's time for dinner," he said, eying the tree where she was perched, catlike, in that peculiar loose-limbed juvenile way. "Find a new spot for homework?" His eyebrows quirked in amusement. "Oh, Hermione, you've got ink all over your face!" he said, as Hermione came clambering down from the beech tree. "Wash that off before your mum sees it, all right?"

"Yeah, okay, Dad." She capped the ballpoint and made for the door, picking her way carefully in her bare feet.

He shook his head. "Just like your mum does, when she gets started on something," he said. "Still, I think she'd notice it on you, even if she never does on herself. Her patients certainly do on her."

Hermione rolled her eyes, entering the house behind her father.

* * *

><p>Dinner was the usual slightly chaotic affair. Her parents talked about patients and their dental issues, sometimes couched in medical terms that flew over even Hermione's understanding. She had made a pact with herself, once, to always try to find out about everything, but even she had to concede defeat when it came to this—and anyway, it wasn't something she wanted to think about at the dinner table, though that never seemed to stop her parents. The medical jargon was interspersed with mundane gossip that Hermione quickly tuned out. Bored, she sought the blue notebook, opening it on her lap. If she could just figure out the connection, perhaps—<p>

"Hermione."

She looked up.

"Not at the table, please." Once again, her mother's uncanny observation skills had won the day. Her voice softened. "Why don't you put that away and talk with us a bit? Did you have a good day at school?"

Hermione slid the small notebook into the pocket of her jeans. "It was fine, Mum. We learned about tectonic plates." She knew better than to mention the incident with the bees. Her teacher wasn't going to tell her parents about it, and that was all that mattered to her.

"Did you? Are you starting on geology, then?" Her mother arched one dark eyebrow. Diana Granger was locally famous for her good looks, with her sleek dark hair, delicate features, and large honey-brown eyes. Hermione was tired of the unfavorable comparisons, as she had inherited her father's untamed mess of bushy hair, and had a mouthful of unsightly braces to add to that. She had her mother's eyes, but that was it as looks went, though her parents and their friends insisted she'd grow into them eventually.

"Yes," said Hermione. "It's to tie in with what we learned in maths about geometric structures." She paused. "Crystals, you know. Not with tectonic plates, I suppose, but with geology."

"Ah." Her mother's gaze was shrewd. "But I seem to recall you checking books out of the library about that quite a while ago."

Hermione shifted in her chair. "Yes, well . . . the plates, maybe. I, er . . . I did read about those. But not about the geometry things. Those were new. Really interesting, too." This was exactly the sort of talk she had wanted to avoid—well, almost. At least it wasn't about the strange things on The List, as she privately called it.

Her mother turned to her father. "David, I'm afraid she's just not being challenged enough. Perhaps we ought to see about a different school, or maybe skipping a year—"

"No!" Her parents looked at her. Hermione blushed. "Please, Mum, I really like it where I am. My—my friends are with me, and I don't want to leave them."

Her mother looked oddly desperate. "Hermione, I never see you with your friends."

She twisted one lock of her hair. "We talk at school. We have fun there. Please—" she knew she was playing her best card, here— "you know how hard it is to make new friends. Please don't make me do that." This was stretching things a great deal—it was true, she didn't _really_ have friends, just acquaintances—but any more stress on her already tenuous position, and she knew The List would grow exponentially, the items on it becoming even harder to hide. Her parents already had to deal with an awkward, asocial, bucktoothed oaf of a daughter. She didn't need them to deal with some sort of . . . freak, along with it.

There was silence, and Hermione's father pinned her mother with a pointed look. Her mother sighed. "All right, dear. If that's what you want."

"It is." Hermione played with the fork in her hand.

"Okay." Her mother looked sympathetic, and a little helpless. "We do only want what's best for you, Hermione. You do know that, don't you?"

Hermione swallowed. " 'Course, Mum." She gave her parents a smile. "Thanks."

* * *

><p>Hermione threw the notebook on the floor of her bedroom in disgust. In the doorway, a pudgy white cat froze, giving her an offended look.<p>

"Oh, Winston." Hermione got up and picked the cat up. "Sorry. I didn't know you were there."

Winston mewed querulously, but permitted Hermione to carry him to the bed. She sat beside him, twirling the ballpoint pen and stroking his fur. "It's just that this is getting me nowhere to finding out what's going on. I just can't see what all of these things have in common with each other. You know?"

The cat blinked, lazily.

"Right." Hermione sighed. "And I can't go talk to anyone about it either. Mum and Dad wouldn't understand what this is, and I can't talk to anyone else; I'd sound completely mad." She looked at the cat. He looked up from licking his paws, meeting her eyes. "And I don't suppose you'd care."

He stared back for a moment, then returned to licking his paws.

"Of course." She got up, hunting for her schoolbag. "Back to homework, then."

"Hermione?"

She glanced up. Her father stood in the doorway. "Dad?"

"Just—" He stopped, and picked up the blue notebook from where it lay open facedown at his feet. "This yours, sweetheart?"

"Yes!" Hermione leaped over and snatched it.

He blinked. "Right. It looked important, but you don't usually just toss your things all over the floor . . ."

"I know. Sorry, Dad."

He waved his hand in dismissal. "Finished your homework yet?"

She nodded. "Just maths, and a few essays, though I might look those over again."

He shook his head. "So meticulous." He lowered his voice, as if in conspiracy. "Did you finish the book? Did you like it?"

She wrinkled her nose. "I finished it, but I'm not sure I understand it. How can a starship run on improbability, Dad? It makes no sense."

Her dad was laughing. "Hermione, it's fiction. It's humor. It doesn't have to make sense."

Hermione scowled. "It should. Everything should make sense." She hugged the notebook tighter to her chest. She would figure that out, she just had to. "Could you give me more by Victor Hugo? I liked that; the historical details were really interesting."

"Hermione, you're too young for that. Leave that woolly stuff for the boring grown-ups."

"I am not! I like it, and it's not woolly, or boring." She jutted her chin out at him.

He reached out and tweaked it, and she squirmed, laughing. "It is boring; I don't know how you can like it, but I'll see what I can find, all right? I'll ask John at the office, he knows these things better than I do. You eat those books up like a little dragon, honestly."

She snorted. "As if there were dragons."

He widened his eyes at her. "There are. I saw one flying over the seacoast once."

"You did not."

"Did so."

"Not."

"I did. Not far from Cardiff, as it happens."

She shoved him. "You're making that up."

"Oh? And how would you know there are no dragons, o wise one?"

She crossed her arms. "They're supposed to be huge, right? How would they stay up in the air? And how would they breathe fire?"

"Magic," said her father, as if that was obvious.

"Magic," she said. "Of course. The convenient answer to everything."

"It works for me," he said. "I think your problem, my dear, is that you make things too complicated."

"It's not my fault. Things have rules. That's just how they are." She uncrossed her arms to prod him in the chest with one finger. "_You_ know that. You're a medical professional. It's your _job."_

He chuckled. "Of course, Hermione. I do know that." He leaned in close to her. "But I think you need to remember to let things go sometimes. You get like your mother, and get too serious. Think about the hypotheticals."

"The—?"

"Ask what-if questions," he clarified. "Don't take things literally all the time."

She relaxed. "All right, Dad." She paused for a moment. "But you won't make me believe in dragons with logic like that."

He laughed. "Fair enough," he said, and ruffled her hair. "That enough debate for now? I wanted to check on Winston, actually. Is he staying with you tonight?"

Hermione's reply was cut off by Winston's imperious mew. Her father laughed. "I suppose that answers that question." He came over to the bed and scooped up the cat. "I think he's taking advantage of his old age, don't you? He expects us to cart him around everywhere."

She giggled. He smiled. "That's better. I hope your mother didn't upset you too much at dinner there. I've told her the same things you did, and more than once, but sometimes she just needs reminding." His eyes darted to the blue notebook that she still clutched in her hands, then back to her face. "You know how she gets. But she does care about you, you know. So do I."

Hermione looked into her father's eyes, and willed him to believe her. "I know. I really am fine, Dad."

He smiled, though his face was tired. "Okay." He came over and kissed her forehead. "Don't stay up too late, now."

" 'Night, Dad."

" 'Night, sweetheart."

Hermione stood for a moment, staring at the door. Finally, she took the notebook and flipped through it, the underlined and circled entries swimming before her eyes. Something had to change. It had to.


	2. Available Resources for Further Study

_A/N: Sorry, the words got away from me and "slight crossover" turned into "real actual crossover." Hope that doesn't bug anyone too much. I'm hesitantly going by the new timeline for YW, rather than the old one (the reasons why will soon become apparent). The HP timeline will follow the book canon._

_Apologies for the wait. The first scene just did not want to be written._

* * *

><p>- 2. Available Resources for Further Study -<p>

Another school day, another dubious exercise in self-control. Hermione sat at her desk, twirling her pencil between her fingers and trying to look interested. It wasn't that maths was boring, but did they have to take so long doing it? Surely no one could find fractions so difficult.

"Hermione Granger."

She looked up, guiltily.

"If you are having such difficulties paying attention at your seat, perhaps you wouldn't mind coming up to the front and demonstrating this sum for the class." Miss Turner, her teacher, was regarding her with an officious frown. Hermione had never liked her. She was the sort of teacher who was obsessed with completing the work according to rigidly defined rules and on a rigidly defined schedule. Hermione found it agonizingly slow; it ran completely against her own generally intuitive style of learning, and consequently the two had had multiple conflicts before from this one issue.

Hermione got up, straightening the wrinkles at the back of her uniform as she did so. She tried to ignore the sniggers from behind her. "Yes, Miss Turner."

When she returned to her desk, she found a folded piece of paper tucked underneath her textbook. She opened it, feeling slightly sick, then immediately crumpled the cartoonish drawing into a ball and glared behind her.

"What's wrong, Granger?" whispered Leanne Johnson from the seat behind her. "Not in the mood for a good joke?"

"It's not funny," said Hermione through clenched teeth.

"That's odd, I would have said that about Sarah," she said. "Remember, you set a swarm of bees on her?" She leaned closer and lowered her voice. "You know, I always knew you were a weird little swot. I just never knew you were a _freak_ as well."

Hermione froze. "Shut up."

"How'd you do it, Granger? Did you set some kind of freaky curse on her?"

"Shut UP!" She dimly realized she was shouting, but no one else seemed to notice. They were too occupied with other matters.

At the front of the room, Miss Turner's desk had reared up, like a horse, onto two of its stubby legs, sending books, papers, and miscellaneous objects crashing to the floor. The children screamed, and Miss Turner dropped the chalk with a terrified squeak, backing against the wall. The desk, however, seemed uninterested in her. It stumbled, drunkenly, and bumped into the opposite wall, looking uncannily like an animal with no head.

The children fled out the door, Miss Turner close behind them. She seemed to have regained a measure of composure. "Outside everyone, quickly! Out into the yard, and stay together!" She saw Hermione, the only one still frozen at her desk, staring at the lurching desk. "Miss Granger, hurry along. Get outside with your classmates, quickly." She nudged Hermione into a standing position almost absently, her own wide eyes still fixed on the sight at the front of the classroom.

Hermione stumbled to her feet to follow her classmates, but slipped away to the main road at the first opportunity. She couldn't stay at school now; there was too much she had to work out, and anyway, it seemed unlikely that the animated desk would get sorted out before the end of lessons anyway. She walked absently, in no particular direction, her mind racing.

She had done it again, and so thoroughly that it was amazing no one was running her out of town with pitchforks. How could she pretend to be normal now? What was going to happen to her? What would her parents say? Or would she even see them again, would the government sweep her away to some laboratory to figure out how she worked?

A clock from a nearby church bell tower chimed—the school day was almost over. Hermione sighed and turned toward home.

She couldn't do this anymore. Her efforts to figure out her strange abilities weren't working, and if by some miracle she managed to escape from this latest fiasco undetected, she needed to find some outside help in getting them under control.

She needed to do some research.

* * *

><p>"Hermione? Is that you? How was school today?"<p>

Hermione froze on the threshold to the front door, trying desperately to control her breathing. "Fine. It was—it was fine, Mum." Could she get away with such little detail? Was this going to be on the news? _Oh, please no._

Her mother quirked an eyebrow. "Well, come in then, tell me about it. Have some tea."

Fantastic. Her mother was trying to be _involved_. _Of all the times for it . . ._ Hermione smiled weakly. "Sounds great, Mum."

They moved to sit in the parlor. Hermione's mother handed her a cup of steaming tea and took one for herself, stirring milk into it thoughtfully. "Mrs. Barker tells me something interesting happened at school today. 'Fine' seems a bit of an understatement, doesn't it?"

Hermione swallowed her tea too quickly and yelped as it burned her tongue. She set it aside on the adjacent table. "Yeah. That was—weird." _Oh God, I can't do this._ "Mum, I don't—I don't know why it happened, I promise. It—it wasn't _intentional_ . . ."

Her mother gave her a puzzled look. "Hermione, I understand it was pretty clearly intentional."

Hermione stared. She couldn't have spoken, even if she'd had the slightest clue what to say. Winston chose that moment to leap onto her lap and she jumped a little.

"Are you all right, darling?" Her mother leaned forward. "You seem awfully distracted."

She petted the cat. "I'm fine." Her voice felt like it was coming from far away. "Sorry, what were you talking about?"

Her mother still looked concerned. "I was talking about that fire drill Mrs. Barker told me about. She said it interrupted most of the school day, simply ridiculous. I told her, I know it's important to look out for everyone's safety, but I don't see why it had to take hours and hours away from instruction. Weren't you terribly bored, just sitting around outside?"

Hermione tried to pull her scattered thoughts together. _Fire drill? _"Er—yes. Yes, it was. Quite boring."

Her mother frowned, but continued. "Well, I was saying to Mrs. Barker that I ought to phone the school, tell them that they need to organize these things better. There's no reason they should be taking all day, not when you've essays and exams coming up. It seems a horrible time of year for these things."

"Oh, Mum." Hermione had felt almost ready to cry from the stress of possibly trying to explain the impossible to her overly-practical mother, but the moment quickly passed at these words. "I don't think that's really necessary, do you? I mean, term will be over soon anyway. And it's not as if they've ever done anything of this sort before." _Fire drill, however did they pass it off as a fire drill?_ It seemed too incredibly fortuitous to be real. Was someone actively covering it up? What about the witnesses? _When did my life become a spy novel?_

"Hermione, I really think—" Her mother stopped at Hermione's strained expression. "Of course, if it would make you uncomfortable, I suppose we could let it go."

"Thanks, Mum." Hermione smiled brightly, then remembered her resolution to find some outside help with her problem. "Although, missing the last bit of school today _was_ inconvenient. I was planning to do a bit of extra research for a special project and I really wanted to go to the library before Monday . . ." Hermione's voice had unconsciously taken the wheedling tone she used when asking a favor. She didn't like to use that tone too often, because it smacked of manipulation, but she figured this time was for a good cause. No one needed another _fire drill_ incident.

Hermione's mother looked delighted. "Oh, Hermione, of course!" She tapped her chin with one finger, thinking. "Well, I'm afraid I have to go into work tomorrow, but your father has the day off. Let's ask him when he gets home. I'm sure he'd be glad to take you to the big library in the city."

Hermione beamed.

* * *

><p>The residents of the little village could hardly fail to notice the two loud Englishmen blundering about the countryside, wearing those ridiculous black cloaks. It was coming on July, not overly hot, but certainly not cold. What did they think this was, a vampire film? The two had harassed all the shopkeepers in search of—a hat, from what anyone could gather from their crude attempts at sign language. Why they wanted one hat between the two of them was a mystery, but eventually the grocer, Wojtek, gave them his own worn-out hat just to get rid of them. They scrambled off into the trees, and the villagers muttered to each other about stupid tourists and their annoying penchant for fantasy and horror clichés.<p>

Meanwhile, the two Englishmen in question were stumbling through the forest, with one mostly dragging the other along by means of various body parts and bits of clothing.

"Is it gone?"

"Will—no, don't stop moving you moron—no—take the Portkey—no, it's not gone you idiot, put those away."

Will shoved the cloth bundles back inside the voluminous pockets of his cloak. "Aw, 'Lyss, I never knew you cared so much."

Ulysses stopped and stalked over, thrusting the wide brim of a tattered old hat into Will's hands. "Two things. One, never call me 'Lyss or I will personally pluck out your eyeballs with the nastiest hex I know. Two, I would never dream of it. You are nothing more or less than a massive thorn in my side, and I would like nothing better than to leave you here for the Ministry and that infernal beast to find."

Will said nothing to this, only raising his eyebrows in obvious reference to the hat clutched in his hands.

"Oh, don't flatter yourself," Ulysses snapped. "That creature no doubt could smell me on you if it caught you, and that's nothing to what the Ministry will do after _they_ find it and you inevitably squeal on me like the wretched girl you are. And—_oh, what is it now?"_

Will hurriedly replaced the bundle in his cloak and bent to pick up the hat. Ulysses swatted him on the head as he rose.

"Don't _drop_ it, you clot! What in Merlin's name are you doing? I told you to put those away!"

Will's face was petulant. "U-Ulysses, they're _heavy_. I'm tired. Can't we go a bit slower?"

Ulysses crossed his arms. "No, we can't. Would you like to know why? One, that thing can fly a lot faster than you can walk. Can we fly? Did you pack the brooms? No, you did not. Two—oh wait, there isn't a two. There's only a cast-a-Featherlight-Charm-and-stop-your-moaning."

"Yeah, all right, stop bloody _counting_ at me." Will scowled. "I can't cast a Featherlight Charm."

"What's the matter? Failed your OWLs?"

"No, I didn't, thanks for asking." Will hefted one of the bundles, wincing. "These're a Third-Species Alchemic Substance. They won't take a Featherlight Charm, or anything else that alters their nature."

Ulysses blinked. "Really. Well done Will, you managed to remember something useful from school."

Will smiled, hesitantly.

"Unfortunately for you, that failed to kick in before you decided to nick four of your precious Alchemic Substances. You wanted them, you carry them. Too heavy? Too bad."

"Fine." Will held up the tattered hat. "Then what's this for? You called it a Portkey, but I am distinctly not moving anywhere."

"I haven't spelled it yet, that's why." Ulysses resumed his pace, calling behind him, "Just hang onto it. I need to find a place where we can take off. I made sure to get us a hat; they're the only things I can make work, don't ask me why. I know I can't trust _you_ to make us a Portkey that actually works."

Will glared at his back and stomped after him.

* * *

><p>"Hmm, that's odd."<p>

"Mm?" The man looked up from his book, reading glasses perched precariously on his nose. "What's up, Carl?"

Carl didn't answer at first, staring intently at his own book lying open in his lap. The book, which was the size of a formidably unabridged dictionary, seemed to be spontaneously multiplying pages and making a low humming sound. "Oh. Oh, _no._"

"Carl?"

Carl got up from his armchair and dropped the shuddering book in his companion's lap. "Take a look at this, Tom."

Tom had made a small noise of annoyance at the book dumped atop his own, but his expression tightened at what he read. "What—is that even _possible?"_

Carl threw up his hands. "Do you need to ask?" He took the book back and flipped to the back, cross-referencing. "I'm gonna have to call the team together. We need to get that beta copy back." He ran one hand through his hair. "As soon as we can figure out where the power for that's going to come from."

Tom paged through his own book. "That's the library copy you've been testing? Can it even work, wherever it's going? The précis I'm seeing here is very vague."

Carl shrugged helplessly and sank back into his chair. "Honestly, I don't know at this point. Half the trouble's going to be in figuring out how it got there in the first place, I thought Peter was supposed to be looking after it . . . I hope it can't? Probably? Are there universes where it wouldn't?"

Tom tilted his head. "Theoretically, yes. I don't think any of us have ever come across them, though."

"Yes, well, the Powers wouldn't ask us to, would They?" Carl stilled, a thought coming to him. "Oh. Do you think They have something to do with this? Oh Lord, do you think They _want_ it there?"

There was raucous laughter from across the room. "And what makes you think _you_ would know if They did, grasshopper?"

Carl threw a glare in its direction. "Quiet, bird. When I want comments from the peanut gallery, I'll ask for them."

"Hold on a sec, Carl." Tom turned his attention to the magnificent scarlet macaw perched in the corner, gnawing on a ring of salt. "Peach? Do you have any insights on the matter?"

It should have been impossible, but the bird's expression seemed to turn shifty. "That depends."

"On?" From the nearby armchair, Carl gave a snort.

"On whether there's any of that leftover pad thai in the fridge."

Carl made mutters about "that has chicken, that's cannibalism," but Tom said, "If I give you some, you'll tell us?"

Peach preened her feathers carefully. "Sure."

Tom got up, and Carl rubbed his eyes tiredly and looked at the bird. "You really think this is something that big?"

Peach pinned her gaze on him. "What do you think?"

Carl sighed. "Right."

Tom came back with a paper container of noodles. Carl looked at it in dismay. "That's all that's left?"

"You ate the rest of it for breakfast."

Carl groaned. "This better be good, Peach."

The macaw plucked at the noodles delicately, swallowing the chunks of chicken whole. "I'm always good. Now, pay attention. Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons."

Tom frowned. "Shouldn't that be 'do not meddle in the affairs of wizards'?"

Peach glared, swallowing the last of the noodles. "I meant what I said. It's true that English is imprecise about that particular term, but it's definitely not _wizards_. Besides, I need to meddle in your affairs, or else you'd never get anything done."

He rolled his eyes.

Carl folded his arms. "That was hardly anything. I want my takeout back."

"I'd like to see you try." She knocked the empty carton to the floor.

"Oh, I'd find a way."

She turned her glare on him. "I think you have enough to do right now, don't you? Call your team. Find that beta copy of yours, because even if the Powers do want it where it currently is, you have no way of knowing that. And if They don't, it could cause a lot of trouble. And mind the dragons!" She spread her wings and left, probably to further scavenge in the kitchen.

Carl stared blankly after her. "I know wizards' pets tend to get strange, but I swear sometimes I don't know what planet she's from."

"You never know what planet she's from," said Tom. "And neither do I." He walked to the perch to pick up the empty carton. "Will it help if I order some more of this for dinner tonight?"

Carl looked tempted, but sighed and shook his head. "No, I need to meet with the team. Probably going to pull a late one tonight." He shut the book and got up, fumbling for his shoes.

Tom nodded. "Anything I can do? I don't know the guys on your team, but . . . talk to Grand Central?"

Carl hesitated. "Maybe. I don't want to bother them just yet, but I'll let you know. It's very possible we'll need their help. I'll send you a message." He thumped the cover of his book with one finger.

"Will do." Tom gave him a rueful smile. "Never a dull moment, huh?"

Carl laughed. "Wizard's holiday, as they say."

* * *

><p>Hermione took a deep breath and looked up at her father. He squeezed her hand and smiled. "This work for you, sweetheart?" he asked. "If it's not big enough we can try one of the universities."<p>

She nodded, feeling apprehensive. "I think it should work."

"All right, then. Do you need me to help you?" He chuckled. "I know you probably know your way around a library better than I do, but I thought I should ask. Or we can ask one of the librarians if you like."

She shook her head. "No, I think I can find it myself." She wouldn't even know where to begin to ask for help. _Excuse me, but do you have any books on how not to do impossible things?_

"Okay." He squeezed her hand again and let go. "I'll just be over here in periodicals. Come find me if you need anything. I might not know everything to do with this project of yours, but I am a professional, as you constantly remind me. I'm not completely stupid."

She giggled. "I know, Dad. Go on, I'll be fine."

He waved and moved off to settle in an armchair with some newspapers. She turned to face the rest of the library, feeling overwhelmed.

Finally, she decided to start small. The children's section would give her a better idea of where to find the right sorts of books—the sheer size of the adult section was vaguely intimidating.

The voice of the librarian startled her. "Hello there. Are you looking for anything in particular?" She was a kindly-looking middle-aged woman wearing thick-rimmed glasses on a long chain around her neck, sitting at a low desk. She looked like every stereotype of a librarian that Hermione had ever seen, and the effect was oddly comforting.

Hermione shook her head a little too rapidly. "No, thank you. Er—nonfiction?"

The librarian gestured to a set of shelves lining the back wall. "Right over there. Card catalog's over here if you need to find anything. And of course, you can always ask me for help." She gave a friendly smile. "Just let me know."

"Thank you." Hermione nodded nervously and walked slowly to the row of shelving the librarian had indicated.

She was relieved to find the cataloging system was exactly like the library at school, and started in Philosophy, feeling slightly better. She skipped Religion, but lingered in Social Sciences, letting her fingers trail over the tops of the books, which so far, didn't appear to have anything to do with her problems. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. She was just wondering whether she ought to move on to Adult Nonfiction and find the questionably occult books on aliens and ESP when her finger unexpectedly stopped, caught in a loose thread from one of the books. The offending volume was green, cloth-bound, with _So You Want to Be a Wizard?_ printed on the spine in neat white letters.

Hermione did a double take. What was a book like _that_ doing in Social Sciences? She looked closer: no catalog number. She pulled it from the shelf and opened it: no catalog card either, apparently. It didn't appear that the library even owned this book, so why was it on the shelf?

Dazed, she carried it to a nearby chair, still paging through it. The chapter headings appeared to be part of some elaborate joke. _"Transformations, Animate and Inanimate: A Practical Guide" . . . "An Introduction to Basic Grammatical Structures of Botanical Species and Their Continental Dialects" . . . "Assessing Wizardly Aptitude: A Question of Innateness?"_

That last was near the beginning of the book. Hermione flipped to it eagerly.

"_The degree to which wizardly aptitude can be measured in individuals has been a subject of recent debate. Though it is clear that the Art may be offered to and accepted by anyone possessing the necessary desire and qualifications, there have been documented cases of individuals practicing what is typically regarded as 'wizardry' without in fact first being formally offered the Art. Such individuals appear to come by their aptitude naturally, and indeed are often unaware of the true nature or implications of their actions. Theories for this phenomenon vary; one speculates the influence of another system of arcane power and its manipulation common to certain adjacent universes built upon older principles of aetheric organization. Others hold that—"_

Hermione shut the book, breathing hard. They _knew._ Someone _knew_ about what was happening to her. Her desperate search for help had actually worked. She clutched the book to her chest and stood, feeling giddy.

The librarian looked up as she approached the desk. "You look happy," she remarked. "Ready to check that out, are we?"

Hermione suddenly remembered the odd placement of the book on the shelf. "I think it must have been shelved wrong," she said. "I didn't see a catalog number. I do want to borrow it, though," she added hastily.

"Hmm." The librarian took the book, studying it. "Look here." She indicated a scrawled message on the flyleaf Hermione hadn't noticed. It read,_ For the library._

"Sometimes people leave us the books they don't want," said the librarian. "They really shouldn't, because we don't always have space or interest in them, but they do it anyway." She examined the book, noting the slightly frayed spine, humming softly. "Tell you what, why don't you keep this one?" She produced a large rubber discard stamp and stamped the inside cover before handing it back to Hermione. "I don't think anyone here will be too interested in it, as it's a bit outdated, but if you like it, you ought to have it."

"Thanks!" Hermione hugged the book.

The librarian smiled. "You're quite welcome. Have a nice read."

Hermione grinned and turned to find her father, head swimming with possibilities, fingers absently stroking the spine of the book. Maybe the things she could do were magic—wizardry, the book had called it—and maybe they weren't, but she was certain now that she could find that out. One thing was clear: it was going to be an eventful summer.


	3. Formulating the Hypothesis

_A/N: Turns out Exposition Dumps are hard to make unintrusive and natural to the setting. I hope the ones I've had to include aren't too annoying._

* * *

><p>- 3. Formulating the Hypothesis -<p>

Carl mused absently that there was really not enough coffee in the world for this. "You . . . lost it." He sipped his espresso and closed his eyes, but his headache stubbornly refused to go away. _Definitely not enough._

Peter winced. "Sorry?"

The team sat in one of Manhattan's numerous overpriced coffee shops, a convenient wizardry placed around the table to shield their conversation from eavesdroppers. The wizardry was of questionable necessity however, crowded as the coffee shop was with the yuppies, commuters, and artsy students typical for a weekday morning. No one paid the assorted group much attention, as their loose circle around the table, thick books in front of them, and energetic conversation seemed to say _book club_ more than anything else.

Carl sighed. "Well . . ." He wanted to say _it's all right_, but they both knew that it really wasn't, and wizards didn't do white lies. "Tell us what happened," he said instead. He wished he had been able to deal with this last night, or at least get a good start on the problem, but even wizards couldn't easily move things around for emergencies. Peter had been in the middle of a working at the East River involving something to do with invasive insect species, Samantha had been at her real-life job as a paramedic, and Clare had gotten tangled in delays at the Crossings and been unable to make it back planetside until early in the morning. Carl had been the only one with time to spare, and without more information from the others, the amount of research he'd been able to get done had been limited. The team always operated with the understanding that its members had their own projects and priorities, and full meetings were seldom. It had worked out fairly well; beta-testing a new edition of the manual was not something that necessarily took a lot of energy or urgency.

Not until today, anyway. At least Carl had had enough time for more Thai from his favorite place after all. It hadn't solved the problem, but it had assuaged it a little. Even after Peach had swooped down upon him to steal some of his satay.

Peter swallowed nervously and pushed his glasses up on his nose. "I had been doing what we agreed, checking the translation algorithms and bibliographic identifiers—I mean, since we decided this is a library copy?" His voice rose in pitch at the end, quavering.

"That's right," said Clare, leaning forward. "Just give us the basics, Peter."

He nodded. "Yeah. Well, I think—I must have forgotten I had it in the short-range claudication, and then I got pulled on active . . . I'm sorry."

She patted his shoulder. "I know, Peter. We'll figure it out."

He shook his head. "I'll deal with it. I'm the one who lost it."

Samantha said, "Peter, you're still on active status?"

"Yeah."

"And you have your dissertation work as well?" She put a finger to her lip. "Sociology?"

Peter nodded.

"Why don't you tell us what you can, Peter, and we'll try to work on it," said Carl. He was still irritated at the situation, but couldn't bring himself to be too angry with Peter, not when he was looking like a kicked puppy. "You don't have to do this alone."

"But it's my fault," he said, stubbornly.

"Everyone makes mistakes, Peter," said Clare, rubbing his shoulder. "We'll handle it."

"What exactly did you do after you went on active?" asked Samantha.

"He bought a timeslide from me," said Carl, remembering. "For two-thirty yesterday. Right? That was for your work with the river?"

"Yeah," said Peter. "I tried to use it, but it wouldn't anchor right." He opened the book sitting in front of him, paging to the back. "It gave me an error reading and the claudication wouldn't take. At least, I don't _think_ it took. I missed an appointment with my advisor."

Carl leaned forward to look at the figures displayed in Peter's book. He drew in a sharp breath. "Oh, it took," he said. "Just not in any way useful to you, I'm guessing."

Samantha bent to look at the book over Carl's shoulder. "What is that?"

"That is an unforeseen half-twist claudication," said Carl. "A synergistic spacetime configuration resulting from the conflicting planar disruptions that sent the book to parts unknown, specifically—" He flipped a page in the book to one that displayed a slowly lengthening list of numbers. "Coordinates oh-phi-three-four-two-six . . ." He waved one hand vaguely at the page. "Okay, that's enough—" and the numbers cut off. "Those coordinates match up with what Tom and I looked up last night. Unfortunately."

"That's—not nearby," said Clare slowly.

"Nope," said Carl. "That oh-phi designates one of the fourth-class universes—one we'd generally never have cause to visit." He took another gulp of his espresso, which had gone cold.

"A universe without wizardry?" said Samantha. "I thought that was just a theoretical exercise."

"No, not just theoretical," said Carl. Of the team, he was the Advisory and had the most seniority. This was his responsibility to know. "Infinite universes exist—we know that. It is only logical that infinite possibility includes the possible lack of wizardry as we understand it."

"But if these places exist," said Clare, "then why has no wizard encountered them before? Why haven't the Powers sent us there?"

"Why should They?" said Carl. "The Powers aren't in the business of wasting energy. However those universes function, they function, and on their own rules, quite separately from our existence. The Powers would have no reason to send us where we are not needed, or would be ineffective. _They_ Themselves operate differently there and presumably have Their own methods for handling the problem of entropy in those places."

There was a pause. Then, Samantha voiced what all of them had been thinking, quietly, and it was as if all the air in the room had turned icy.

"Most of the Powers might not be in the business of wasting energy. But One might."

Peter swallowed. "I'd say it getting lost was an accident . . ."

"But there are no accidents," finished Carl. "And this situation could certainly play to Its advantage." He paused a moment, gathering his thoughts. "I talked to my partner pretty extensively about this last night. What we came up with is rough, because this isn't in either of our specialties." He looked at Peter, giving him a weak smile. "Peter. No one is blaming you for what happened. At a certain level, what happened isn't really anyone's fault. But it remains a strong possibility that that book could do some serious structural damage to its surrounding universe. That book is a beta copy of what will be a standard-functioning manual, with all the embedded wizardries that entails. Those wizardries will probably attempt to work regardless of whatever world the book finds itself in. But if that world happens to be one where wizardry itself doesn't actually exist . . ."

Peter's eyes grew wide. "Entropic dissolution?"

Carl grimaced. "Maybe. I'd say that's a worst-case scenario, but I'm really not sure. One thing I intend to do is contact some members of the world-gating teams at Grand Central or Penn Station—they probably know more than I could say. Not to mention, we need to work out a way to get that book back, and they're the experts."

Clare nodded, glancing at the others. "I can talk to the Penn gating team—I worked with them for my last trip through the Crossings."

"Thanks. I'll talk to the head of Grand Central." Carl smiled faintly. "Assuming she doesn't claw my eyes out for bringing her such bad news."

* * *

><p>"Okay," Hermione whispered, "<em>now."<em>

She sat on the front step to the house, a cup of tea beside her, the book resting in her lap, and decided to give it a capital letter in her mind. Something about "the Book" rang neatly symmetrical with "the List," and she loved the importance of it. She couldn't keep calling it by the silly title actually emblazoned on the cover—it didn't have nearly the proper sense of gravity.

She glanced back at the front window to the house, catching the eye of her father, who waved to her. She smiled and waved back. Her parents thought she was preparing for her exams out here; they were only days away. She probably should be, rather than chasing down theories about magic. But then, if she wanted to keep from turning her classmates into chickens, studying magic was probably a better idea.

She wanted to believe what the Book told her was real. The bits of it she'd read in the library had certainly seemed to suggest it, but she couldn't help her quietly persistent fear that it was all part of some—very thorough—practical joke. Surely anyone could write a lot of technical jargon explaining magic sensibly and logically. That didn't make it the truth.

She opened the Book to a page near the beginning.

"_The reluctance of beings to observe and accept the workings of wizardry is a well-examined phenomenon, particularly evident in locales in which wizards remain unknown to much of the larger population. A likely cause would be the psychological willingness to fit events to one's own paradigms, but complications can arise where especially thin dimensional walls exist, in which case the resultant loss of mundane barriers tends to interfere with ontological processing. The effect is especially common in urban areas and other such points of temporal-spatial syncretism, and can—"_

Hermione closed the Book. "Huh."_ That was oddly specific._ She drummed her fingers on the green cover. "All right," she said. "Let's see what you've got to say about . . ." Her mind cast back to Sarah Thorne and the last thing she'd bothered to record in the List, before she'd lost control and everything had got so complicated. "How about something on . . . bees," she said softly, opening the Book again and starting to turn to the index. That would be nice and easy.

To her surprise, she didn't find an index. Near the bottom of the last page, she read:

_"Wizardry is often described as the product of research, planning, and intent. The wizard states the intended result of the wizardry to the Universe, pays any necessary costs, and wizardry ensues. This is generally the process, and it runs smoothly for the majority of wizards. Wizardry is thus typically regarded as something purposeful, rational, and controlled, carefully governed by its own natural laws. To some extent, this view proves accurate."_

Hermione slid a finger under the page to turn it, and was surprised to find several more. "I could have sworn that was the last page." She shivered. Was it her imagination, or did the spine feel a little thicker than before? She read on.

"_Yet despite this consideration and frequent demonstrations thereof in practical wizardry, exceptions must be acknowledged. The common expression among wizards 'There are no accidents' might seem to novices to imply a sense of control or mastery over the effects of their wizardries, while in fact the opposite is frequently true. Indeed, effects of spells often do not go explicitly as planned, yet nevertheless progress according to some unseen reason or intention outside of the wizard's control. Whether that progression is ultimately beneficial to the wizard's original intentions, naturally, varies considerably._

"_In addition, there is the consideration of the truly accidental, or so-called 'natural' wizardry, which generally requires little in the way of planning or supplies, often arising even from individuals unfamiliar with the Art (please see 'Assessing Wizardly Aptitude' for a more thorough discussion of this phenomenon and its implications)."_

"That—was just a coincidence," said Hermione slowly, even as the line _There are no accidents_ sing-songed back at her. "Why does this thing read like it swallowed a textbook, anyway?" _What was it doing in the children's section?_ She flipped back the pages, purposefully trying for something random.

"_Wizards have always had a close relationship with words. The successful wizard is usually an avid reader and writer even before taking up the Art, and the aptitude develops apace with wizardly knowledge. Logic, rhetoric, and even poetry are often necessary tools for the practical wizard in persuading a plant to grow more slowly, or the air to flow in a certain direction, to use the most basic examples. _

"_Though this book is intended first as an introductory guide and later, as a practical manual, the surest heart of wizardry lies in the simplest facility with words themselves. The text here introduces the novice to the Art, and uses a rough approximation of the rigor and detail of description in its prose needed to communicate complex abstract ideas. Nevertheless, English, like most languages, proves ultimately inadequate to the task of wizardry. At the point when the novice transitions to a competent practicing wizard, fluency in the wizardly Speech becomes necessary."_

"No." Hermione shut the Book. "No, no, _no—_"

"Excuse me, miss?"

Hermione started, internal crisis briefly forgotten. "What?" She looked up.

Two men stood hesitantly by the front gate. Hermione stared. They were wearing . . . black cloaks? Who did that? They were filthy, their cloaks snagged with brambles, as if they'd been walking in the woods for days. "Are you . . . lost?" she asked, getting up and walking closer.

The younger-looking of the two gave her a sheepish smile, and his companion swatted him across the back of the head. "Ow! Yeah, a bit. I wanted to ask you, where's the nearest city? And er, which one would that be?"

Hermione blinked, taken aback at the oddness of that question. Perhaps they were serious hikers from the Continent, who happened to . . . wear . . . cloaks? _All right, it still doesn't make any sense. They don't sound foreign, anyway._ "Erm—yeah. There's Newport, a bit west of here. That's probably the closest large city. I'm sure they have maps in the shops down the street." She pointed, reaching over the gate with one arm. "I don't really know how to get there myself, but you could ask them. That . . . help?" She eyed their ragged cloaks dubiously, wondering if they would even have any money to buy a map.

"What about London?" said the older man in a hoarse growl. "They got maps that show London?"

"London? Of course," said Hermione. "But London's pretty far away, and it's in the other direction. It might take awhile—"

"Don't care," said the older man. "Just need to see where it is."

Hermione nodded, slowly. "All right." She paused. "Well, good luck, then? Have a nice trip?"

The man grunted irritably. "Also need to know," he said. "There anyplace nearby that's quiet? Someplace without a lot of Mu—people, around?"

Hermione blinked. "Erm—it's quite quiet here, you know. At least, we like to think—"

"Isolated," said the man. "I need—that is, we'd fancy a bit of a nature walk."

Hermione looked at their muddy cloaks and thought, _I'm sure you do._ "There's the Forest of Dean. That's north of here."

This time the grunt was approving, though it was hard to tell. "They got maps of that in those shops too?"

"Sure, I suppose," she said.

"Good." He tugged at the sleeve of his companion. "Come on, you lump." His tug caught the younger man off balance, sending several items he'd been carrying under his cloak tumbling to the ground.

"Ah!" cried the younger man, scrambling for the cloth-wrapped packages and checking them for injuries.

One rolled against the gate by Hermione's feet and she bent to nudge it toward the man. Its wrapping was coming undone. "Here, don't lose your . . . egg?" She looked at the glittering thing that was nearly as large as a football, wondering what kind of creature could possibly produce it.

The man snatched it. "Thanks!" He gave her a nervous smile, juggling the bundles in his arms, and hurried down the road after his companion, who had already started walking without him.

Hermione stood there for a moment, staring after them. "Right. Right." Finally, she remembered herself and stalked resolutely back to the Book lying forgotten on the front step. She sat down, and gulped the remainder of her now-cold tea.

"Right," she said to the Book. "I suppose you think you're being clever. Could I just ask you to tell me the future then, and you'd do it? Is that how it works?" She closed her eyes and opened it to a random page, slowly, as if drawing cards from a tarot deck. When she opened her eyes and started to read, she could swear the Book sounded almost smug.

"_Prophecy as a subject is almost useless in practical wizardry. While it remains tempting for many would-be practitioners, its intentional use is generally fraught with self-interest and unavoidable bias. The most accurate prophecies tend to be unsolicited, and are frequently so vague that their foreknowledge is useless in influencing actual events._

"_Telling the truth of the present tends to be a more useful skill for wizards. To know the truth is to know how to change it, while the future by necessity concerns itself only with potentialities. The information detailed here enables new wizards to seek that truth found in the present and eventually, to learn how to influence it."_

Hermione shut the Book again. "Fine," she said. "Teach me. If that's what it takes for me to not . . . not blow things up, or turn things into other things without meaning to, teach me. Stop talking in theory and give me directions." She opened the Book.

The page she opened to was almost completely blank, a short paragraph appearing above a small indented block of text, elegant in its simplicity.

"_Wizardry is offered to the supplicant directly from the Powers That Be, ensuring full understanding of its potential costs. Wizardry is a lifelong profession, not to be taken lightly. The wizard practices not out of self-interest, but for the goal of slowing the death of the Universe. The Art is often difficult, emotionally trying, even outright dangerous. However, its benefits cannot be understated. Wizardry is the direct language of the Universe, the wizard a direct conduit to it. Becoming a wizard enables one to matter to the Universe in a fundamental sense, and to know its innermost workings more completely than any other being."_

Hermione held her breath and released it slowly. She read on.

"_To all who remain interested, despite the potential dangers, the Wizard's Oath signals the initiation of a novice wizard. The new wizard will then undergo a preliminary Ordeal. If the Ordeal succeeds, wizardry ensues."_

"Yes," whispered Hermione. She scanned the indented text several times, checking the wording, then began to read aloud. "In Life's name and for Life's sake . . ."

* * *

><p>It was, really, far too hot a day to be doing this. Carl tugged at the collar of his polo shirt, wondering why he had decided to wear black on a day with temperatures in the mid-90s, when the air hung still and oppressively sticky. A short distance away from him, a group of college students lay on towels on the grass, obviously sunbathing. Clearly someone had had the right idea, but it was too late for Carl to go home and change without missing his appointment, and he inwardly balked at the idea of wasting energy on a cooling spell. He shifted on the bench and nodded at a passing jogger, trying to appear casual.<p>

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait much longer. Seeing an approaching figure, Carl placed a small foil package on the pavement at his feet and straightened. A calico cat stopped in front of him, sniffing delicately at the package.

"Smoked salmon? Very generous, Advisory."

Carl gave a small smile. "I know a little market that has the best. I figured I might as well get on your good side. I'm afraid this is probably going to get very annoying."

The cat regarded him with serious green eyes. "It certainly seems to be annoying you, Har'lh." She ate in silence while Carl waited, watching the pigeons. When she had finished the last of the salmon, she sat back on her haunches, licking her paws neatly. "The Whisperer's account was rather distressing."

"Yeah, distressing's one word for it," he said, picking up the empty wrapper to throw in the trash can next to his bench. Beside him, a newspaper lay open to the crossword puzzle, but even with that, passersby were beginning to avoid the man apparently talking to no one. "I was hoping for a consultation; this might be over my head."

She leaped onto the bench, settling on top of his ignored crossword puzzle.

"Careful. I used a gel pen on part of that and I'm not sure if it's dry." He didn't dare reach out a hand to pet the cat, knowing it would not be appreciated.

She closed her eyes. "Wonderful. I'll deal with it later. Tell me what you need, Har'lh. I take it this isn't something you can consult your partner about?"

He smiled ruefully. "Already tried. He did what he could, but Tom's specialization isn't really these kinds of gating fiascos."

"Isn't for most _ehhif_," agreed the cat. "So, you lost something of the Powers to a realm that isn't supposed to exist . . . and you want it back, I take it?"

"That's the idea, yeah," said Carl. "I think I hardly need explain the problems it would cause if someone found it."

"You'll have a hard time preventing that," she said. "The—book, is it?—wants to be found. That is its purpose, and it will attempt to fulfill it with the first compatible candidate—or what it thinks is a candidate."

Carl groaned. "I figured. I mean, I didn't want that to be true, but it is, isn't it? Especially since those locator wizardries were already laid on the copy we were testing, so of course . . . but it won't actually _work_, will it? You're more current on transuniversal theory than I am at the moment."

"It will try," she said. "But I believe most of it shouldn't be operational, not when the surrounding infrastructure—our universe—doesn't exist around it. The energy in that world is very different; the book isn't calibrated for something like that."

Carl swallowed. "Any idea what _would_ be operational? Visions of chaos and destruction are dancing through my head."

"Nothing so dire as that, thankfully," said the cat, sounding careless. "At least, not yet. The manual database might still work, perhaps. And the small database wizardries that keep that operational. Mostly, things that pertain to the book itself and how it operates, and less with how it interacts with everything else."

Carl inhaled. "The Oath?"

"Unlikely."

He let out a gust of air in relief. "Thank the Powers for that. That was also what Tom's research seemed to suggest."

"And T'hom's research is impeccable."

Carl smiled. "Usually. So, can you help build a gating to get it back? Assuming we can pinpoint where exactly in that universe it is?"

She twitched her tail. "I will consult my colleagues. We could probably do the pinpointing first; looking is generally easier than traveling. I think we could work something out, if we had enough wizards working on it. But in any case it'll take awhile."

He sighed. "Great. Thanks for doing this, Nirruah. Tell me what you need?"

"I will," she said. "To start with, you could check the local directories, find other wizards to lend power to whatever we end up attempting. And get T'hom in contact with me to help write us something." She leaped back to the ground, tail in the air, then turned to fix her eyes on his. "You should operate under the assumption that someone has already found it and we will have send someone to retrieve it directly from them, Advisory. Because it's probably true."


	4. Experimental Methods

_A/N: GIANT chapter, partly because Peach wormed her way into it against all plans. Hope no one's too bothered by that; I'm certainly not. :)_

_This chapter includes the very first scene I wrote for this story. Exciting to finally get to it now!_

* * *

><p>- 4. Experimental Methods and the Collection of Data -<p>

_This is it._ Hermione had spoken the Wizard's Oath. She had waded through the Book's tiresome depth of background information—or tried to at any rate, as the pages seemed to multiply before she could ever reach the end of a section. She was ready to try some real spells.

Hermione sat in her bedroom, supposedly having gone to bed. She had locked her door, though she hoped her parents would stay in their room, since she wasn't actually allowed to keep her door locked. With any luck, her beginning experiments in wizardry wouldn't prove too noisy.

She balanced the Book on one palm and closed her eyes, her other hand hovering over the green cover, as if it were some nervous animal. "Tell me . . ." She paused, thinking. "Tell me how to change something into something else." She opened the Book.

"_Transformation,"_ Hermione read, _"is largely the product of knowing the innermost nature of something. Accordingly, the primary danger the beginner faces with transformation is a lack of sufficient understanding of the matter to be transformed. This is to say nothing, of course, of that matter which resists change—as sentient entities often do. Thus it is necessary to confer first with the entity in question and confirm whether it wishes (or needs) to be changed. Transformation is not a flashy business, nor should it be. It is a powerful tool of the seasoned wizard, though it remains rarely used."_

Hermione frowned.

"_Before attempting a transformation, try listening and waiting for as long as it takes to understand something. Only after you have attained sufficient understanding should you proceed."_

"Fine!" she said. "What _can_ I do?" She shut the Book, grabbing a pencil from her desk. "_Confer_ with it? How do you _confer_ with an inanimate object?" It was a pretty ordinary pencil, she thought. Yellow, soft silvery-gray point, red rubber that had been partially nibbled, thanks to Hermione's persistent oral fixation. It was rather boring, in fact. Hermione closed her eyes. _Is this understanding? I don't know how to do anything more. Am I meant to have a conversation with it?_ She fancied the pencil was a candle, picturing a white wick and neat white wax, the sort of candle the church choir used at Christmas, feeling her mind push against something until it finally gave way. What she saw when she opened her eyes resembled not so much a candle as a melted pencil, though where the point had been was a cotton wick, protruding from the deformed wood. She squinted at it and _focused_, feeling that mental pressure again, as if she were exercising a muscle she hadn't known she had. Slowly, the yellow pencil faded to white and grew waxy. Finally, a candle lay in her open palm. She relaxed her focus, feeling suddenly dizzy.

"Right." Hermione stared at the candle and tried to reconnect her thoughts. She thought, distantly, that that probably hadn't at all been what the Book had meant for her to do. _What was all that about . . . wizardry being planned . . . ordered? Something._ That hadn't felt ordered at all. That had felt like savagely pushing a great mound of . . . something up a hill. "Just got to . . . figure this . . . nngh." She stumbled against the side of her bed, collapsing, as stars winked into the edges of her vision. "Doesn't make . . . any . . . mmpf." She closed her eyes, and the white candle rolled out of her loose grip, off the bed, and onto the carpet.

Hermione slept.

* * *

><p>In the bowels of the Ministry of Magic, the stirrings of a bureaucratic storm were brewing. Oswald Penn of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes was ideally positioned to see the warning signs and he winced. He hadn't even had time to finish his morning tea. "Julie," he said to the figure striding up to his desk. "What can I do for you?" He had a pretty good idea what.<p>

"Don't you 'Julie' me, Oswald," she said, her hands on her hips.

He gave her a stare from over the rims of his glasses. He'd had to get very good at that. Essential, when working for the Ministry. "Yet you're calling me Oswald," he said. "Miss Winterson."

"I don't care if you call me Julie, just don't pretend you don't know what this is about. The entire department have been in an uproar about it. What's this about an escaped dragon in Gloucestershire?" She slammed a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ on his desk.

He moved his tea closer to himself, as if afraid of possible violence. You never knew with young witches. They arrived at the Ministry fresh from Hogwarts, full of ideals, and suddenly life became an endless parade of earnest campaigns about the Changes We Could Make. The whole thing made Oswald nervous. He picked up the newspaper. "Technically, it isn't a dragon. Rita Skeeter's been embellishing again, I see."

"Never mind that, why haven't you sent out the Obliviators to deal with the Muggles? And for that matter, _why_ is there an escaped dragon—"

"—Not a dragon—"

"—_whatever_ in Gloucestershire? I'm trying to get the Obliviators organized and I'm being told I 'don't have the authority' and 'special circumstances prevent it' and all sorts of rubbish. Just what in Merlin's name is going on?"

Oswald rubbed his temples, giving up the idea of being left alone to finish his tea. It had already gone tepid, and he'd found Reheating Charms just seemed to take all the flavor away. "According to reports, two males, probably Fletcher—the elder, not the younger—and some accomplice of his were poaching in India and had the bright idea to steal some Class-A items—eggs. The mother got upset enough to chase them through half of Asia, and most of Europe, and since they're from the UK, fixing all of this is apparently our problem. The costs are going to be unbelievable—the Obliviators are already pulling extra shifts abroad as it is. Probably the Minister just doesn't want to spend the Galleons." He squeezed his eyes shut and waved one hand at her. "Just do a blanket wipe with the regular staff, if you're so worried about the Muggles."

"The _regular staff?"_ she said. "Oswald, they're horribly incompetent, I don't even know if Higgins knows which end of a wand is up—we may as well use a Bludgeoning Hex! We can't go treating Muggles' minds like—like used parchment!"

"Well, _we_ can't afford to be working the Obliviators any more than we are, and do you know how expensive they are to train and keep?" He took off his glasses and rested his face in his hands. "Not to mention relations with Poland and Germany are a mess, and the French have been ready to spit fire. And we'll need Magical Law Enforcement, _and_ that bloke from Magical Creatures, you know, the one with the peg leg—"

She frowned. "Bob? I thought he'd retired."

"He'd like to, I'm sure, but as no one else is willing to wrestle dragons and griffins and Merlin knows what else for a Ministry salary, he's rather stuck with the job for now."

"What about that, what's his name, Lockhart? He's written a lot of books, seems like he'd be keen."

"Taking time off to work on his autobiography, according to his press agent. Anyway, don't think the department could afford him."

"Of course." She threw up her hands. "If we can't send the Obliviators where they're clearly needed, we definitely can't hire a celebrity. Bloody budget cuts."

"Yes." He slid his glasses back on and looked her in the eyes. "I am sorry, Julie, truly I am. But my hands are tied."

She sighed. "Ugh. Fine." She thrust one finger in Oswald's face and he flinched. "But I'm going. _I _know how to do a decent Memory Charm, and someone needs to prevent Higgins from traumatizing the Muggles."

He held up his hands. "Go ahead. That would do a lot to ease my mind, actually." He smiled weakly. "Keep that Higgins out of trouble."

"And the rest of them. They're all hopeless, that lot." She paused. "So if it's not a dragon, what is it, exactly?"

Oswald reached into his desk drawer and slid out a glossy photograph. "Some Muggles took photos. Another thing we'll have to make disappear, no doubt." He handed her the photo.

Julie whistled. "That's a big one." Suddenly, she smiled. "You know, Xeno Lovegood's got this crazy theory that those things are psychic."

"Xeno Lovegood," said Oswald, "needs to stop reading Muggle children's fantasy novels." He took back the photo, waving her off. "Go on. Enjoy babysitting Higgins."

"Oh, won't I _just._"

* * *

><p>"The Forest of Dean?" said Hermione after dinner, while her father was washing up. Compulsively, her fingers tightened on the Book clutched in her hands.<p>

"That's right," said her father. "I know you've been working hard at school, and term is over now. We could all use a treat. Your mother and I have arranged for time off from work, so we can all go next week."

"The weather's supposed to be lovely," her mother put in.

Hermione scrunched her face in thought, considering that. Something was sticking in her mind about the Forest of Dean, something strangely insistent. "Camping?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong? You can't tell us you have homework."

She remembered what it was now, mostly. Those oddly cloaked men with the great glittering egg, who'd been after "a bit of a nature walk" . . . She hadn't thought much about them at the time, being rather immersed in her reading, but something about the whole encounter now made her uneasy. " 'Course not," she said, trying to keep her voice light. "Only I've just got this really interesting book from the library that I want to finish." She rubbed her thumb over the Book's green cover, tracing the smooth lettering of the title.

Her father rolled his eyes. "What else is new? You do need to get outside every now and then, you know."

"I _know_, Dad. But this book . . ." Hermione stifled a yawn, thoughts of the two strange men fleeing her. Twelve hours of sleep and she still felt run over by a train.

"That's how she is, David," said her mother, getting up from the table to pour herself another glass of water. "Always reading." She gave her daughter a knowing look. "I ought to have known that trip to the library last week wasn't just for school."

Hermione squirmed a little. "This book sort of . . . caught my attention." _Literally._

Her father reached over and ruffled her hair. "Fine, take it with you if you must. It's not due any time soon, is it?" He knew Hermione would never lose a library book.

"No, I have it for a while."

"All right, then." He nodded his head up the stairs. "Go on, and pack your trainers, mind. We'll be going on some walks. And get some sleep; you've been looking done in all day. I don't know what you could have found so terribly riveting last night—" he gave her a stern look "—but just because you're on summer holidays does not mean you can neglect your rest."

Hermione waved a hand indistinctly as she opened the Book and started to her bedroom. She was so preoccupied in her perusal that she almost tripped over Winston on her way. "Winston! You really shouldn't sit in the doorway like that." She nudged him gently with her foot and he slowly got up and stretched, giving her a dirty look before sauntering downstairs.

She trod on something beside the bed and felt it crunch beneath her foot. Looking down, she saw a broken pencil on the carpet. "What—" She turned and closed the door hurriedly. "This was a candle. This was the candle I made last night. I spent all my energy making that and it didn't even _last?"_ She juggled the Book in one palm and flipped it open. "Tell me what's going on. What am I doing wrong?"

The Book, when it opened to the inevitably relevant page, was faintly chiding.

"_Novices may be swayed by romantic depictions of wizards as wielders of great and arcane powers, beings who command and even contradict the natural order. Yet the truth is, as truths frequently are, both simpler and far less impressive. The most powerful magics (if we may deign to use that problematic term in this instance) tend to be the least noticed. The greatest wizardry lies in the preservation of power, being indeed the purpose for its existence: the slowing of universal entropy. The greatest wizards thus achieve much while appearing to do very little._

"_Consider the seeming mundanity of recycling one's plastic containers, or turning off the lights after leaving a room, or walking somewhere instead of driving. There is nothing overtly wizardly about these activities, which may be practiced by any conscientious individual, yet the inherent goal remains the same. A wizard will similarly avoid needlessly teleporting when other easier modes of transportation will do, or using a spell when an everyday solution is available. Wizards are not grandstanders by nature. Their very profession precludes it."_

Hermione's mouth fell open. "What— Are you—are you _telling me off?"_ She dropped the Book on her bed and started to pace. "No. No. You do not get to tell me off—how dare you! I'm trying to figure this out! How do you expect me to work out how to do this . . . wizardry, whatever you call it, if I don't _try?_" Her mind flashed back to the List, to the bees and the not-fire drill and all the little unexplained things that she couldn't control, that seemed to trail in her wake like shadows. "I'm not—I wouldn't do anything _evil_. I wouldn't ever do that." She sank on the bed. "Please. I know I probably wasn't at all efficient yesterday and I was _trying_ to do something simple. At least, I thought it was simple. I've done much more than that before—and not on purpose—and those never tired me out so much as this. And I need to control this thing. I can't go on not knowing what I'm going to do next." She sighed and rested her face in her hands.

"I get what you're telling me, you know." She lifted her head. "All that about doing something that matters, that isn't just magic tricks for the sake of it. I want—" She licked her lips, hesitating to say that secret she'd nurtured for so long even to the silence of her own bedroom. "I want to do something that matters. Something _good_." She laughed a little, the sound catching in her throat. "Suppose I ought to work out what that is."

She flopped on her back, letting her thoughts drift. She was jerked out of her brooding by a knock at the door.

"Hermione?" Her mother pushed the door open. "Are you all right? Were you . . . talking to someone?" She looked around the empty room.

Hermione reddened. "No! I was—" She cast her eyes about the room for an excuse. "I was looking for something. A pencil." She snatched the remains of the yellow pencil from the floor. "I found it," she said, lamely.

"I . . . see." Her mother pursed her lips, eyes trailing over the broken pencil clutched in Hermione's hand. Finally, she said, "You're sure everything is all right, Hermione?"

"Yeah, Mum." Hermione plastered a smile on her face. "Everything's fine."

"All right, then." There was another pause. "You'd better get packing. Don't forget to bring your mac; it could rain this time of year."

_Packing—? Oh._ "Right. I'll do that."

"All right." Her mother gave her another thoughtful look before closing the door with a parting "Good night, darling."

" 'Night, Mum."

After her mother had closed the door, Hermione collapsed backward on the bed, letting out a sigh. _That_ had been awkward. Here Hermione had been panicking about The Great Magic Crisis, completely forgetting that she was supposed to be packing for a surprise camping trip in the Forest of Dean—

Hermione sat up, the pages of the still-open Book rustling beside her. _The Forest of Dean._

Why had the two men wanted to go to the Forest of Dean, of all places? The older of the two had mentioned a "nature walk," but Hermione couldn't believe that was true. Their filthy ragged cloaks, tangled with leaves and briars, clearly spoke of two people who'd had quite enough of nature, as did their tired and irritated demeanor. And that egg, or whatever it was . . . They'd been so covert about it, and so nervous when Hermione had got a glimpse of it. Were they . . . avoiding someone? Running away, hoping to lose their pursuers in some forty-odd square miles of forest?

Hermione gasped. They were _thieves._ Criminals—who knew what all they'd done. That egg was a stolen valuable of some kind, probably, the way it shone like silver—

And she would be going to that forest, where _they_ were, in just a few days.

Hermione grabbed the Book. This was it. This was the something good that she could do; this was what the magic was _for._ She flipped through the pages. "I know what to do now," she told it. "Tell me—hmm. Can you tell me how to do something—big? And not pass out afterward like I did before? Is that possible?" She smoothed the Book open at a random spot.

"_The most valuable consideration of practical spellwork is that of energy management. Wizardry, despite its glamorous reputation, does not work against nature, but through it. A wizard does not—unnecessarily—defy natural laws, but rather operates through the hidden aetheric principles that make wizardry possible (see 'An Introduction to Spell Theory' for more). The structure of a spell therefore not only operates in conjunction with these principles, but also provides an important mental framework for the wizard to organize power efficiently. Wizardry itself is, after all, primarily a function of mind and belief. With these organized properly, the aspiring wizard can achieve great results with a minimum of effort."_

Hermione chewed her lip, thinking. That sounded much more ordered than her experiment with the pencil. "I was muscling it," she said. "Wasn't I? It only worked because I threw a lot of energy at it, not because I had any—precision, or anything."

The Book didn't answer, of course, but Hermione grinned, knowing she was right. It was all going to work out now. She would do a better job with her next spell, and then she was going to fight crime, just like in books, and it was all going to be _brilliant._ She could start by getting back the egg and finding what collector or museum it belonged to. "Book," she intoned, closing her eyes. "Tell me how to do, er—" What was the proper word for this? "A summoning." She flipped the pages.

"_Summonings and Invocations: A Primer," _the heading read.

Hermione squeaked a little in her excitement. "I _love_ you." She read on.

"_Warning: Before attempting any evocation-class spelling, it is very important to specify the exact coordinates of the sought object. Failure to do so may elicit imperfect results, including planer misalignment of summoned objects/entities._

"_Summoning represents one of the most powerful and difficult classes of wizardry to perform, yet its theory is among the simplest to understand. The spells detailed here are examples of some of the most common and easy types of summonings. Support spell structures and necessary supplies for this class tend to be minimal, making these spells ideal for beginners, who can make up for their spell theory inexperience with high native power levels."_

Hermione frowned as her eyes trailed down the page. The Book called these spells "simple," yet the amount of information it was devoting to them was mind-boggling. She finally found one that she hoped would work and studied the instructions, which thankfully called for nothing more exotic than a drawn diagram and a small length of knotted string—she'd worried for a moment whether she'd be expected to find eye of newt or something.

She tore a fresh page from her blue notebook and carefully sketched the diagram detailed in the Book, using a compass from her desk to get the circles right. On a separate page, she wrote down all the specified information she could that the spell called for—which included a lot of things she frankly thought had nothing to do with what she was trying to do. There were the expected things like the physical description of the egg, which she wrote down as best she could remember, but then there were questions like what she'd had for lunch the previous day, or what her favorite daydream was when she wasn't paying attention at school. She tried looking that one up, but only found something about "standard personal identifiers," which presumably had something to do with figuring out how to render her name in the Speech—the wizardly tongue in which all spells were conducted. Thankfully, the Book seemed to realize she hadn't had time to learn a whole new language, and fed her those parts of the spell with attendant translations and pronunciation guides.

Finally, she had the diagram filled in and all the relevant personal information written down on another page in the notebook. She read over the spell silently several times first, checking the pronunciation carefully. Then, she spoke the spell aloud, her eyes straying to the English translation.

"_This is a class-two invocation," _Hermione read, haltingly, in the Speech. _"Purpose: retrieval of a foreign object, coordinates . . ."_ She read off the rest of the spell, stumbling in only a few places, and waited.

And waited. Hermione frowned. Wasn't something supposed to be happening right now? She'd done all the steps correctly, written down all the (painstakingly detailed) information she knew about the egg, the men who had it, herself, her house, her village, the weather, the time of day, and anything else the Book could think to ask her. Really, she could just picture the egg now, thanks to all that mental effort gone into describing it—

Something tapped against the glass of her window. Hermione jumped. She ran to the window and thrust up the sash. A silver egg soared through the open window and landed with a thump on her bed, right on top of her paper diagram.

"Oh, _wow,_" Hermione breathed. She walked slowly to her bed. Part of her wondered distantly why the egg had apparently flown through the air instead of materialized as the Book had described, but that was discarded in her fascination with it. It was mesmerizing to look at, huge and smooth and shining white, with a flawless, mirror-like surface. She picked it up and gasped at its weight and coldness. "Is this—real silver?" She had to grasp it with both hands just to lift it. She set the egg carefully back on the bed, brow furrowing.

"Maybe I should have waited until we actually left," she said. Carrying this thing around with her was going to be a trial. She'd planned to bring it to the original owners, figuring they would be in the Forest pursuing the thieves. What if they had other contraband? She couldn't help remembering the other two cloth bundles they'd been carrying along with the egg . . . She shook her head. She couldn't worry about that now. Besides, she had the Book. She could try another summoning spell, perhaps, now that she knew how it worked.

Hermione gave a small leap of excitement, stumbling abruptly when another wave of dizziness swept over her. The spell had tired her out, probably, but she couldn't worry too much about that. Magic, _real_ magic, was worth it.

* * *

><p>"The manual won't <em>work<em>," said Nirruah sharply. "The Knowledge was very specific about that, Har'lh. Clearly, something else is going on there."

"Clearly, _something_ is," said Carl, beginning to feel exasperated. "You can't tell me that someone is just pulling off level-two invocations without _something_ going on. So what is it, then?"

"_Something_," echoed a scratchy voice.

Carl turned. "Now is really not a good time to pretend to be an actual parrot, bird," he said, scowling.

"Who's pretending?" said Peach. She spread her wings and landed heavily on Carl's shoulder.

Her claws dug through his t-shirt. "Ow! Peach!"

Nirruah was staring at the macaw, her pupils dilating in a way Carl found he really didn't like. "You are an interesting creature," she said, stalking silently over to Carl's position on the carpet, where he was crouched before a softly glowing spell diagram.

Peach's feathers rose around her neck. "I'm an associate," she said coolly. "I advise these two clueless humans."

"I heard that!" came Tom's voice from the next room, where he had shooed out the others so he could focus on outlining a transportation spell.

"Yes, well." Carl stood up abruptly away from the cat's intense gaze, Peach flapping to keep her balance on his shoulder. "Nirruah, Grand Central gating, meet Machu Picchu, general annoyance. Bird, what do you want? If you've got something to tell us, spill."

She nipped his ear. "Now, how will you learn anything if you don't figure it out for yourself?"

"Peach_—_"

"Show all your work! Don't forget about the extra credit!"

"_PEACH—_"

"Har'lh," said Nirruah. "What's this extra variable over here?" She was sitting before one node of the diagram on the floor.

He wheeled, as Peach took off from his shoulder for her corner perch. "What extra varia—" He paused to look at what Nirruah was indicating. "Huh. How'd that get there?"

"Abracadabra!" said a voice from the corner.

"Bird, that line was old when dinosaurs were wizards," said Carl, crouching next to the cat again. "That might just be our something else. You think, Nirruah?"

"Likely," she said. "I don't believe either of us accounted for it, but it seems the spell self-adjusted—" she darted one paw forward, and a string of light the same bright white color of the diagram trailed from her dewclaw "—here. Balanced itself, apparently. This information indicates another power system at work here. You discerned it was an _ehhif_ who found the beta manual . . . female, was it . .?"

"That's right," he said, flipping through his manual to the section where he kept his notes. "A girl, probably about ten or eleven years old. And from Britain—their analogue of it, that is." He frowned at an adjacent part of the diagram. "Interesting perhaps that the timelines don't seem to match up exactly. That world's about ten Julian years behind ours, give or take."

"Such a temporal shift is hardly unusual in a transuniversal context," said Nirruah. "As for the girl's youth, that will make convincing her to return the manual that much easier. It was always likely that book would seek a child—that is what it was designed to do." She batted at the diagram with her paw, as if chasing a dust particle, and the node rotated to display more characters in the Speech. "What is unusual is that this _ehhif_ child seems to be the source of this variable, this power system." Her tail twitched with annoyance. "Although not . . . entirely? These threads become tangled." Her ears flattened. "So much disorder pervades this reading."

"Isn't that just like a cat," said Peach, swooping to land across from them on the other side of the diagram. She cocked one beady eye at Nirruah. "Never wanting to get messy."

"Peach," said Carl. "Don't."

"What?" said Peach. "She was staring at me like I was dinner. I think I'm entitled to a little speciesism."

Nirruah regarded her flatly. "A poor sort of helpmeet you make if you can't avoid an obvious predator."

"And a poor wizard who disdains a source of free advice."

"All right!" said Carl. "Enough. Peach, either say what you want to say, or leave us alone, please. This is a delicate operation, and we have no time for bickering."

"Oh, _fine_. Though I still think I should get some extra peanuts for this."

"You already ate all of my peanut _sauce_," said Carl. "All of it, Peach. I didn't order it just for you, you know!"

"You're not still sore about that, are you? Here I keep you and Tom from bashing your heads into trees, metaphorically speaking, and you complain about _one_ time I had a craving for a little peanut—"

"Excuse me," said Nirruah, "but could you get on with it? Because Har'lh is right. Time is of the essence, and if you don't stop wasting ours, I might change my mind about catching you." She raised one paw, needle claws extended.

"Heathen," Peach muttered. "Fine. You're already mostly there, anyway. This extra power reading? Yes, it comes from this girl who found your beta manual, but not just from her, right?"

"But there's no wizardry, in that world," said Carl. "So . . . there's something else?"

"A different power management scheme," said Nirruah. "Isn't that it? Not wizardry as we understand it, but another means by which the population adopts the native aetheric energy and shapes it to its will. It might even go by a similar name, but it's not the same thing."

"That's it," said Peach. "That's what attracted the manual to that particular kid and that's what your spell is detecting. Not true wizardry, but just similar enough. Your level-two invocation, Carl, is not truly a wizardry, but something powered by whatever local aethers she has access to."

"Well, that makes sense," said Carl. "Why couldn't you just tell us that earlier?"

"You seem to be under the impression that knowing these things is as simple as reading a book," snapped Peach. "If it were, would you be going through all this?" She indicated the complex glowing diagram with a bob of her head, where Nirruah was prodding at its lines with one paw and ignoring the rest of the conversation.

"I wouldn't put it past you to draw it out just to mess with us," Carl said. "That's what you've been doing."

"The longer you know me, and the longer you stay in the Business," said Peach, "the more you'll realize that I rarely do things for no good reason." She cast a glare at Carl. "And of course that line was old, you foolish human. 'I create what I speak,' isn't that how the translation goes? What could be older than that? A rendering of the great Power's original Word that created everything. With 'everything' being our universe plus all the other ones. Including, apparently, ones in which the everyday mortals go around creating things with their own words. So there, I wasn't drawing it out. I, dear Carl, _was answering your question._"

Carl folded his arms and matched her glare. "Fine. Maybe you were answering my question. But what you were also doing was showing off."

Peach tossed her head. "A frailty of mortality. We all live to show off. It ensures the perpetuation of the species."

Carl snorted. "Oh, like you're so concerned about _that_."

"Well, no." She groomed a loose feather. "But it keeps me and everyone else entertained." Spreading her wings, she said, "Now, I think I'm going to go entertain Tom out of some peanuts."

Carl rolled his eyes, but he couldn't quite help the slight smile tugging at his mouth as he turned his attention back to Nirruah and the intersecting lines of light on the carpet.

* * *

><p>"Be back in time for dinner!" her mother called. "And stay on the path!"<p>

Hermione waved after her, shouldering the rucksack containing the silver egg, the Book, her blue notebook, and little else.

Her parents had been right—the weather in the Forest of Dean _was_ lovely this time of year. The Grangers were camped farther away from the usual spots, because as Hermione's father said, they were in need of "a bit more nature and a bit fewer people." Hermione saw this as strangely fortuitous, given that the two cloaked men had said something similar, and counted it as a good omen in her quest to return the silver egg to its owner. Today they had just set up the tent, and the atmosphere among them was lazy. Getting away had been only too easy. Hermione had said something vague about finding wildflowers and her father had waved her off, stretched in a hammock, his eyes sliding shut, while her mother sat beside him in a folding chair and opened a book.

Hermione strode purposefully into a copse of oaks, determined to find a private spot where she could consult the Book and find more about the two men and whomever they'd robbed. She kicked at some fallen leaves, not really paying attention to where she was going, as the trees thinned out to a small meadow. A bird cried an alarm as she entered the clearing and she turned momentarily to look.

And then she turned back, and saw something that turned her legs to stone.

It was like some bizarre melding of bird and snake. Its body was huge, reptilian, with iridescent amber scales and a long, snakelike neck. The head was small and triangular, and it glared at her with sharp, lidless, yellow eyes. It had two scaly birdlike talons, legs clad in spotted brown feathers that met a feathered midsection and huge, mottled tawny wings. Its long scaled tail had a fan of feathers at its end, and whipped through the air as it regarded her. The snake head was topped with a crest of feathers, and it twisted to follow her movements when she flinched, the feathers on its back rising in clear threat. It opened its mouth and let out an avian shriek.

Hermione quailed. _Oh God. I'm sorry Dad, dragons really are real, and now I'm dead, so _dead. _I didn't listen and now it's going to eat me. _Her rucksack dropped to the ground from nerveless fingers, and she took several shallow steps backward, closing her eyes, hoping the death would be quick.

She opened them after a moment, finding herself still intact and the creature nosing through her bag. Puzzled, she took a step toward it, only to back away sharply when it made a warning hiss. It disregarded the Book and notebook, using its sharp talons to snatch out the silver egg, then flapped two quick beats of its wings to retreat a short distance away.

"Of course," said Hermione, wanting to drop to the ground from sheer exhausted relief. "That's yours, isn't it? Have you been looking for it all this time? Are you its mother?" It _wasn't_ some sort of collector's item at all, she realized. It was real silver, and a real egg, and it belonged to this monster. She suddenly remembered the other cloth bundles the men had been carrying. Were there more of these eggs?

She stepped closer and it screeched at her, winding its feathered tail to cradle the egg.

"I wasn't going to harm it!" Really, she felt she would collapse if she stood here any longer. Why wasn't she running? What did it matter to her if the creature never found its eggs?

It was still hissing at her in warning, its feathers raised, the fanned end of its tail lashing. Its yellow eyes met hers, and Hermione stumbled with a sudden headache. _A mountain slope, green with patches of melting snow; a stick nest of silver eggs; fly, fly and catch the thief–_

She gasped. "Was that you?"

It hooded its wings over the egg and continued to glare.

Hermione swallowed. "I wasn't going to hurt your egg," she said, trying to keep her voice soft, although she wasn't sure the thing could understand her. "I didn't mean to take it from those men. But if I understand them right, _they_ did mean to take it—and the rest of them—from you. I think I know where they are." _London, it has to be London,_ she thought. _They were talking about going to London. Anyway, I have that summoning spell now, right?_ "I think I can help you find them. But you have to listen, when I tell you I don't mean to hurt you. Or your eggs." She caught its eyes. _Believe me. Please._


	5. Some Potential Research Problems

_A/N: Thanks to ScarletTigress for Higgins's first name!_

_Also, this is meant to be the Wham Episode. How am I doing?_

* * *

><p>- 5. Some Potential Research Problems -<p>

"I still don't see why this expedition had to include you." Carl jerked his right shoulder in a vaguely aggressive gesture designed to shrug Peach from it. In the crowded depths of Grand Central Station, the macaw drew surprisingly fewer looks than he'd expected. Apparently the day's commuters had other things on their minds.

Peach bobbed easily with the motion, used to such behavior. "You need me."

He rolled his eyes. "I endure you." Subconsciously, he reached into a corner of his mind. _You sure you couldn't supervise the bird for a few days?_ he sent silently.

He felt a bubble of warm laughter from Tom. _I'm sure I _could_, but she was pretty adamant that you needed her with you._

_Yeah, but you know her. She'll say anything to get what she wants and claim it's oracular wisdom. She probably just wants me to buy her junk food._

_She might come in handy. Anyway, better safe than sorry. I worry about you._

Carl smiled. _Don't. I'll let you know when we get back, okay? I doubt I'll be in ambit where we're going._

_Please do._

Carl sent a sense of affirmation to Tom before letting the mental link recede. He set a tote bag of supplies down on a nearby bench and turned to the cat keeping pace at his side. "All right, Nirruah, where are we headed?"

"_Ca'eherruh_," she said, stepping up to an empty platform. "I believe you _ehhif_ call it 'Gloucestershire.' But T'hom's spell will be anchored to the _Lhondhhon_ worldgate, so we'll head there first. This way, quickly—" and she appeared to step sideways into thin air.

Carl raised his eyebrows. "Good thing I packed my passport." He picked up the tote bag, following her into a grimy brick passage, where a dim orb of white spell light was hovering lazily overhead. The stale air and rusted tracks under his feet told him it was one of many abandoned subway passages, now adopted for use by New York's diverse wizardly population. Nirruah sat primly between the tracks waiting for them. "Why are we going to our Britain first, though?" Carl asked her. "It's not as if she'll be there."

Nirruah sneezed delicately. "Of course not, but our traveling to our own analogue now will save us a lot of trouble in configuring T'hom's transportation spell. We already know she's in _her_ _Ca'eherruh_. This saves us from tedious location subroutines, and it's much easier to anchor T'hom's spell to a nearby established worldgate."

Carl nodded. "Right, I see. Because here we have the benefit of public transit."

"Exactly." Nirruah swiveled her head to consult a display of glowing characters hovering beside the spell light. "And we're just in time; the next departure to _Lhondhhon_ is in about two minutes." She turned back to him. "You did remember to bring the right _ehhif_ currency, didn't you? We'll need it for transit from _Lhondhhon_ to_ Ca'eherruh_. Most wizards prefer not to use spells for trips like that, because of all the—"

"Overlays," said Carl. "Yeah, the manual told me as much. And yeah, I just went to the bank this morning. Exchange rates could have been better." Reading about the overlays had been fascinating, though. Carl found it amazing that British wizards managed to get anything done at all. There were so many traces of old power lingering in the earth, the landscape, the roads, the buildings, and occasionally, the people. Failing to account for them properly in a wizardry could prove disastrous, and made most casual spelling where they existed laborious to simply impossible.

"If you'd gone last week like I told you to," said Peach, "you would have gotten a better deal."

"Oh right," said Carl. "Because I'm going to randomly stock up on foreign currency just because you tell me to."

"You should," she said, straightening a tail feather in a way Carl knew was meant to appear offhand. "You should always do things because I tell you to because I'm always right."

Carl flicked her beak with one finger and she squawked and tried to bite him. "You behave yourself, bird. We have that notice-me-not spell prepared and we're going to use it, but that doesn't mean it won't fail if you decide to have a public temper tantrum in the middle of London."

"Don't do _that_ and I won't have to!"

"Both of you, silence," said Nirruah. "And step over here in this circle, unless you want to wait for the next scheduled gating and waste more time. I'm dealing with kittens here."

Carl shut up, and stepped to the indicated position. For a moment, the world _rippled_, and then all was quiet.

* * *

><p><em>How do I get myself into situations like these?<em> Hermione rubbed her temples, something she'd seen her mother do often enough, but had never had cause to do herself. Until today. _My fault. It's all my fault. I tell the Book I want to do something important and this is what I get. Should have known. Why me?_

The creature let out another shriek and Hermione flinched. "Will you stop that?" she demanded, only dimly aware of the folly in addressing such a formidable beast in such a way. "You're going to attract somebody's attention." _Like my parents. Who will probably be ballistic that their daughter's unwittingly stolen something belonging to a bird-snake monster._ She narrowed her eyes at it as it turned one yellow eye toward her again. To her utter amazement, it closed its mouth, the crest of feathers lowering to lie flat against its head. It made a soft chirruping sound and flicked out a forked tongue, regarding her steadily.

She let out a breath. "That's—good. Good." She got shakily to her feet, her legs having evidently deserted her at some point. The creature didn't make a sound. "Good—er, what are you? Because I always pictured dragons looking a little different. You don't breathe fire, do you?" She edged closer until she was almost directly in front of it. The creature tilted its head to follow her steps, but otherwise didn't move. "Can you understand me?"

Suddenly, the long snakelike neck lunged forward. Hermione let out a choked-off scream, her hands rising in supplication, her eyes squeezing shut. After a brief moment she opened her eyes and jumped. The snake head was inches from her face, its round yellow eyes scrutinizing her.

"What—" she began, but it darted forward again, bumping its snout softly against her forehead. It breathed, and Hermione felt the world fall away.

_A man with a stumbling, sniveling walk; another with ice-cold eyes, a smile that creeps across his face like a lizard—THIEVES. FIND THE THIEVES. The sleepy drone of a city, far below; people shouting, pointing, as clouds drift to cover them from view—_

"Ugh." Hermione lurched, reaching instinctively with one hand to lean on the creature's neck for support, dislodging its nose. It blew warm air over her hair. Hermione got the impression of distinct disgruntlement.

Its snout rested against her forehead again, and her headache flared anew. _THIEVES. FIND THEM._

"Yeah, I _got_ that." She shoved the head away and staggered backward to plop roughly on the ground. A part of her wondered at the wisdom of that action, but most of that was lost to the ringing in her ears. "Just—just ease up, all right? Oooh, my _head."_

A shadow fell over Hermione's face and she looked up. The creature had its wings draped over her, shading her from the sunlight. It met her eyes and trilled softly as the pressure in her head subsided to a faint tickle. It seemed to carry a sense of embarrassed remorse.

Hermione had to laugh. "It's all right. Just go slower, yeah? I'm not used to talking this way." It was hard to comprehend. Her brain couldn't begin to put it into words; it went completely against her normal mode of thinking. Everything came in a dizzying stream of images, sensations, and confused successions of emotions.

Its head drifted forward again, hesitant, settling against her forehead. Hermione closed her eyes.

_Four eggs, glittering silver in the sunlight, warmed by the creature's feathers; gone, leaving only the scent of intruders behind; pain, the pain of hatchlings lost; need, need to find them. FIND THEM—_

Hermione winced. The creature chirped, as if in apology. _Find them. _ The mental pressure eased.

"Yeah." She reached up and tentatively patted its crest of feathers. "Yeah. I can try. I promise I will try." She remembered her words to the Book. She grinned at the creature. "I think I found that important thing I'm supposed to be doing."

It chirped and nudged her hand, sending an unspecific sense of questioning.

She swallowed. "How am I going to help? Well, er, I got this one for you, right?" She pointed to the egg on the ground, still held in the lasso of the creature's tail. "I can probably use the same spell, if they're not too far away . . ." She trailed off, remembering the pair's stated intentions to head to London, caught in the logistics of that. If they had been worried about this thing trailing them, it seemed pretty unlikely they were still in the Forest of Dean. _And the Book said this spell was for short distances only . . . _She slumped. "You're going to want to go to London, aren't you?" _No way my parents would mind that at all._

Suddenly, the creature drew back, blasting air into her face with two great beats of its wings. It landed carefully over the egg to grasp it again in its talons.

Hermione blinked. "What's wrong with you?" Its head darted forward again, this time to snatch her abandoned rucksack— "Hey!" She watched as with surprising dexterity the creature lifted the egg to deposit it in the rucksack, settling it snugly against the Book. "What are you—"

"_Hermione!"_

She stumbled to her feet at the sound. "Oh my God."

* * *

><p>"Mummy, look at the bird! And there's a kitty, too!"<p>

Carl grimaced and walked faster, the motion causing Peach to shift her wings irritably. "So much for the notice-me-not spell," he said to her. Nirruah gave a small meow of reproach, picking up her pace to follow him, dodging people in the mayhem of Tower Hill Station.

"I thought it would be best not to bring it up," Peach said in his ear. "But really, Carl, you should have expected this. Exactly what part of 'wizardry doesn't exist here' didn't you get?"

He gave her a look. "And yet you still insisted on coming along."

"I told you, because you needed me," she said. "Was I supposed to let a few peoples' ideas of normality stop me? They'll get over it."

Carl muttered something to the effect of that being debatable.

"At least you can still understand me," said Nirruah, sounding annoyingly calm. "If it were to the point that the Speech itself were rendered unintelligible, we would have problems."

"There, you see? The cat agrees with me for a change," said Peach. "Anyway, if you'll notice, your spell isn't entirely useless here."

Carl looked around. It was true that most of the adults, particularly the serious-looking business types, didn't even spare the strange party a glance. A few people were giving them second looks, as if they couldn't quite make out what they were seeing. The definite exclamations seemed to be reserved for children.

"It would be children," said Peach. "Children have such great psychic resilience. It's one of the reasons why the Powers choose them for the Art."

"It seems T'hom's work was not in vain," said Nirruah, following their gaze. "Your spell mostly worked, you can understand me, we can still access the Knowledge—or at least, I can," she said, eyeing Carl's tote bag where his manual lay, along with sundry other supplies. "We should still be able to perform wizardry that affects ourselves, and preserve any on us that still remains. This spell proves that affecting others is . . . more difficult. But that we ourselves are so unaffected by the rules of this universe is remarkable, really. You have a very talented partner, Har'lh."

"Yes," Carl said, slowly. He automatically tried to reach for Tom to relay the compliment and was unnerved to find nothing. "Sorry, it's just . . . never mind." Carl was used to feeling mentally connected to Tom anywhere he went. Even in the rare occasion one of them was in a universe too distant for telepathy, he could at least _feel_ him. He was distinctly unsettled now to feel so . . . _empty_.

Peach had turned her head to watch him closely. "Better get moving to Gloucestershire," she said, and her voice was almost gentle. "The sooner we get that beta manual back the sooner we can get back to New York and you can tell that partner of yours the head of Grand Central logistics paid him such a compliment."

Carl smiled. "Oh, so you do know Nirruah's title? Not just 'the cat,' is she?"

"I'm a macaw, not a troglodyte," said Peach. "Anyway, you'd better shut up now. People will think you're talking to thin air. Or if you're unlucky, to that parrot sitting on your shoulder, which honestly isn't much better in the London Underground."

He grinned. "'They'll get over it,' I think you said?" He reached into the tote bag and pulled out a map. His eyes widened steadily as he read. "Powers, this is complicated," he said. "Wait a minute." He looked at Nirruah. "Overlays? Surely there won't be overlays here, will there? Isn't that more in our London?"

Nirruah's tail twitched. "You saw the limited effectiveness of your selective invisibility spell just now," she said. "Do we really want to risk a teleportation spell?"

Carl made a face. "Oh. Right." He turned his attention back to the map, which was riddled with little colored and dashed lines that might as well be ancient Sumerian. Or rather, some hypothetical language that a wizard _couldn't_ intrinsically understand through the Speech. "All right, I'm a New Yorker, I should be able to read this," he breathed.

Peach craned her head to inspect the map. "We need to go to Paddington Station," she said.

"We do?" said Carl. "Wait, how do you know?"

"I said you needed me," she said. "Even if it's apparently for basic navigation."

He rolled his eyes. Perhaps he had been getting a bit too reliant on teleportation lately—rather embarrassing for a wizard. He'd have to work on that when they got back. "Fine, Paddington Station. Um . . ." He spun in a slow circle, the crowds of people churning around him.

"This way," said Nirruah, and sauntered smartly in one direction. "I consult with my _Lhondhhon_ colleagues fairly often; I am reasonably familiar with the layout of the Underground." She glanced back at him. "I'm assuming you have sufficient fare."

Carl looked up from the map sharply. "No." He looked around, finally spotting a ticket machine. "Hang on."

A minute later, Carl was growling at the machine. "It won't accept it!" he said, trying to reinsert the money into the slot.

"Let me see that," said Peach, peering at Carl's five-pound note. "I don't think that's been issued yet."

"What?"

"Well, you said yourself the timelines didn't match up exactly. It's what—1990 here? 1991?"

Carl groaned. "Great. More complications." He tried the Speech, hesitant that it would work here. "_Could you maybe consider accepting this as payment? I know it looks a little funny, but if you hang onto it, I know it will come in handy for you after a while . . ."_

No response. Well, it was a long shot.

"One moment, Har'lh." Nirruah stepped up to the machine, leaning on her front paws to see the little screen. She recited some syllables in the Speech. Carl, catching on to what she was doing, joined her. The image on the note shimmered, becoming blue and changing to a different face.

"That should do for this," said Nirruah. "It probably won't stand up to close scrutiny, but it should serve for a machine."

Carl grimaced. "Never thought I'd use wizardry to counterfeit currency."

"Technically, it's not counterfeiting because the money is actually legitimate," said Peach.

"Yeah, well, still." Carl inserted the money, which the machine smoothly accepted, spitting out his ticket. "All right, let's go—oh! Sorry."

The man he bumped into sneered, brushing off a long black cloak as if Carl had personally contaminated it. Carl thought that was rather rich, considering the cloak in question was filthy, splattered with mud and what looked like burrs. He studied Peach, clearly perfectly able to see her. "Funny replacement for an owl, mate," he said, striding away, dragging a more nervous-looking man with him, who was similarly dressed in a bedraggled black cloak.

Carl stared for a moment. "I think those two might be a little too weird for London," he said, trying to make sense of the man's comment.

"Never mind that now," said Nirruah, beginning to walk off again. "Paddington?"

"Right." Carl tucked away the rest of his questionable money and followed her.

* * *

><p>Hermione stared into the wood, straining her ears, hoping she hadn't heard what she most certainly had. And oh, <em>crap<em>, how long had she been out here? Had the sun been that low in the sky before?

_THIEVES. CATCH THE THIEVES. NOW?_

She whipped her head back, scowling away the sudden headache. "You cut that out." The creature ignored her and flapped closer, her rucksack still clutched in its talons.

Then, she heard it again. "Hermione!" She groaned.

The creature trilled a noise of faint concern, nosing the back of her head until she almost lost her balance. She shoved at it. "I told you to sod off."

"_Hermione." _ Her father pushed through the thicket of oaks, out of breath, followed by—_oh, God—_her mother. Their faces drained of color. "Hermione," her father breathed, "what—" He made a strange choking noise. "What—is—that."

Hermione opened her mouth, trying desperately to find the right words. "It's—well, it um . . ." Behind her, the creature hooked its snake head over her shoulder. It issued a disquieted metallic warble almost directly in her ear. She winced at the sound.

Her mother took a couple of jerky steps forward. Her voice rose in an agitated wail. "Hermione Jean Granger, you _get away from that thing!"_

The creature bristled, feathers raising. Its head darted forward and let out a screech.

"_Hermione!"_ This time her father was the one who made a move forward, hands reaching as if to grab his daughter. The creature hissed and snapped at him.

Hermione tensed, her headache flaring to life again. "Mum, Dad, stop it, you're just making it angry!" She took several deep breaths.

The creature trilled in her ear in what it clearly felt was a conciliatory manner. Its feathered tail slowly began to wind around her ankle.

Her father refused to back down, though he kept his hands out of reach of those jaws. "And _what_ is _it_?" he said.

She breathed out in helpless frustration. "I don't _know!"_ The creature's tail tightened and she forced herself to calm down until it relaxed. "I don't know, Dad. I just found it here and I don't know if it's a dragon or not because it's not like the ones I've read about and I don't know if it can even breathe fire—" Her voice was rising steadily in pitch, but it was too late now. The words were tumbling out and the tail around her ankle tightened again but none of that seemed to register. She just kept _talking._ "It was just _here_ and it's lost its eggs and now it's trying to get them back and I think it only likes me because I managed to convince it I'm not out to steal them but if you get upset now it'll just feed off it." She took a shuddering breath and licked her lips. "It's—I dunno, _psychic_ and it's really very sensitive to emotions so could you _please_ try to keep yours under control? _Please_, Mum? Dad?"

"Hermione." Her mother stepped forward and the creature hissed again, softly, displaying impressive fangs. "I'm afraid I don't understand." She gestured helplessly at her husband. "Your father and I. _We_ don't understand. What _is_ this thing? Did you—did you just find it out here in the woods? What do you mean you _convinced_ it?"

Hermione could hear the question her mother didn't voice: _Why is it so interested in you?_ She sighed. So much for secrecy. "Mum. Dad. There's something about me you don't know, and, well . . ." She swallowed. "I suppose I need to tell you."

Her parents' faces didn't change from their looks of worried confusion. Hermione swallowed again before continuing.

"The thing is—" Her voice broke. "The thing is, I sort of—helped. I didn't mean to!" she said hastily when their faces contorted with worry. "It's just something that _happens_. I—I've got _magic_. I've got magic and I'm trying to control it but sometimes things just happen anyway. Now I've got—well, _this—_" She gestured behind her, her fingers brushing a scaly snout, and both her parents made aborted movements of panic "—and it thinks I can probably help it get its eggs back and well, I probably can, but _God."_ She shook her head violently, trying to force away the tears. "And now you know and that's the last thing I ever wanted. You to find out I'm some sort of _witch_. I was supposed to figure this out, I was supposed to make this work on my own, not drag you both into it . . ." Her breath hitched and she found she couldn't continue.

"Hermione, darling." Her mother's voice was very soft. "I realize that this is a very—" She glanced at the monster hovering behind Hermione and gulped. "A very _unusual_ situation you've found yourself in. And I hope you don't think we blame you for any of it, you mustn't ever think that. But you should know you don't have to make up stories to—to appease us. You don't have to be afraid to tell us the truth. You can trust us; you must know that."

Hermione looked up from where she'd been contemplating the ground. She blinked, tears briefly forgotten. "W-what?"

"Sweetheart." Her father stepped forward now, warily glancing at the creature, which shifted, its talons still hooked in Hermione's rucksack. "You must admit this story sounds a bit . . . farfetched. We want to help you. But we need you to tell us what's going on."

Hermione stared. All this worry for _this?_ "That _is_ what's going on!" At her words, the creature crowed, its tail beginning to tug more insistently at her leg, winding up from her ankle to grip her calf.

"Hermione." Her mother spread her hands helplessly. "You can't expect us to believe this. Magic . . ." She waved one arm. "I know there's another explanation."

Hermione actually stomped the foot that wasn't encumbered by the tail. "There is not!" Now she was yelling, but she was too far gone to recognize why that might be a bad idea.

The creature threw back its head and roared. A throbbing headache overcame Hermione. _LOST, HATCHLINGS LOST. THIEVES! CATCH THEM NOW!_

With that, the tail that had been merely tugging at her leg now yanked in earnest, lifting her into the air. Hermione screamed. Her parents rushed forward, but the snake head darted to meet them, roaring in their faces, fangs extended and threatening.

"_Hermione!"_ both her parents shouted, but the creature had already used its tail to sling a dazed Hermione onto its back. Her arms instinctively clung to the long neck.

The great wings spread wide, tawny feathers catching the shallow sunlight. With a few powerful wingbeats they were off, to anguished cries below.

* * *

><p>Carl could only thank Nirruah and Peach that he was able to navigate the Tube to Paddington Station, use what little of his money that was actually good in this decade to purchase tickets that would (eventually) get them to Gloucester, and to successfully board the necessary trains. By the time they reached the station for the final train, Carl was beginning to relax.<p>

Unfortunately, because of all this, Peach seemed to feel entitled to a reward.

"You know, just in case it matters to you, time is actually kind of an important consideration here," Carl said, folding his arms.

Peach groomed a feather. "And this will take what, ten minutes? Food is a valid reason for a break. And look, they have kebabs!" She craned her head, following the wafting scents from a nearby food cart. "To think I was worried it would all be potatoes and sausages here. Not that there's anything wrong with those, but you know, variety."

Carl sighed, glancing at Nirruah for support. "We don't have time for this—"

"Actually, some food now would be prudent," said Nirruah.

"Thank you!" said Peach. "You know, I think you might actually be all right for a feline."

Nirruah purred. "And I can begin to see now why you would be a helpful talent to Har'lh and T'hom."

Carl frowned, suspecting an insult hidden somewhere in that comment. "Seriously though, we need to make good time," he said, reluctantly stepping out into the open air where the food cart stood. He couldn't pretend he wasn't hungry too.

"Our train doesn't leave for another thirty minutes," said Nirruah. "And in this place, I don't know if even the Powers could speed that up."

"They wouldn't want to try," muttered Peach.

"Fine, fine." Carl stepped up to the little food cart, selecting some of his timeline-proof money to buy two lamb and vegetable kebabs. "You two will have to share one of these," he told them. "I need to make sure we have enough money left to get us back to London when we're done."

He had just paid for the food when a great shadow swept overhead. All around him, people were shouting and pointing, some screaming in terror at what they saw.

It was a massive shape, something with a long neck and tail and two great feathered wings, shining like copper in the sunlight. It was very high up, but if Carl squinted, he could almost make out something like a person on its back. "What is that," he breathed.

Next to him, Peach made an irritated noise. "I _told_ you the word 'dragon' was imprecise. The English language, I swear."

The thing swept over their heads, moving quickly in the direction from which they had come, toward London.

Carl stared after it as it disappeared into the distance. "I _really_ hope that has nothing to do with us."

Peach cackled. "Don't be so sure about that. There are no accidents, remember?"

Carl looked a moment longer, then shook his head. "We should get going soon." He brought the kebabs to a bench near the platform, setting one down next to him. Nirruah leapt beside him, sniffing the food, while Peach walked down his arm to join her. "How much time do we have, Nirruah?" He didn't feel like getting up to go look at the timetable.

Nirruah meowed. "_Mrr_—minutes."

Carl turned to look at her. "Sorry, what was that?"

She met his eyes, her tail starting to twitch in agitation. "We—_mrr—_minutes."

"Uh oh," said Peach.

Carl felt cold all over. "She's losing language. Or we are. Nirruah, can you understand me?"

She hissed. "No—_hiss_—what—_mrr—_you're saying."

"Oh Lord." Carl reached out, tentatively, placing one hand on her back. "Nirruah, can you please hold it together? Stay with me." He turned to Peach. "Tom's spell must be breaking down." He paled as a new thought occurred to him. "What does that mean for you?" What _was_ Peach, really? Had she grown into her intelligence and clairvoyance as a side effect of living with him and Tom, or had she possessed it all along?

"I'll be fine." Peach's voice was even. "Her self, her memories should be fine; it's just language she's losing. _We're_ losing."

"Right." Carl turned back to the cat. "Stay with us, all right, Nirruah? We can fix this when we get back to London. Just don't lose us."

Nirruah's eyes were wide. "All right—_hiss_—Har'lh."

An announcement sounded over the intercom. Peach cocked her head. "We'd better board our train soon. And then we'll have to hurry to get that book. Looks like you'll be needing me after all."

* * *

><p>Julie sighed. "I <em>thought<em> you said you knew where it was," she said, glancing around for any inquisitive Muggles. So far, not even the Muggle campsite managers in the Forest of Dean seemed to have noticed the pair, but considering their specialized equipment and Higgins's less-than-stellar attempt at Muggle clothing, she was feeling nervous. Honestly, a flowered sundress? Not the most inconspicuous choice.

Higgins scratched his head and waved something that resembled an old-fashioned television aerial, the tip of which was pulsating gently. "Hard to say," he said, pushing a strand of sparse dark hair away from his thick glasses perched precariously on a shiny red head. Julie had always privately thought he looked like a mole left for too long in the sun. "This device ain't real accurate all the time, Madam Winterson."

Julie shuddered. "_Don't_ call me that," she said. "I'm not married."

"Sorry, ah, _Miss_ Winterson."

She sighed again. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "I thought there were going to be more of us sent out from Accidents and Catastrophes? Or maybe some Muggle Liaison Officers?"

"Were," said Higgins. Julie thought he sounded entirely too cheerful about the matter. "The lot of them are still in France. Ruddy thing left a lot of damage there and the foreign Ministers have still got their wands in a twist about it. Don't worry, Miss Winterson," he said, flashing her an inane grin. "I'm sure they'll come round, help us out when they can. Just Ministry's got their hands full right now, and I was they only one they didn't need over there."

_I wonder why that was_, Julie thought darkly. "So you don't know where it is." She was trying to stay patient, she _really_ was.

Higgins shrugged. "Sorry. I reckon it's still following Fletcher and whoever his assistant is."

Julie put a finger to her chin in thought. "Then it's probably on its way to London. If they've got a clutch of Occamy eggs, then they'll want to unload them in Knockturn Alley as soon as possible."

Higgins raised his eyebrows. "So we go back to London?"

Julie scowled. "We still need to check if any local Muggles have seen it. Given the situation in France, I'd be greatly surprised if they hadn't." She looked his sundress up and down. "Isn't there anyone in the Department who knows about proper Muggle dress?"

Higgins looked slightly wounded, tugging at his dress. "What's wrong with it? Purple's my favorite color."

She rolled her eyes. "I see that. Doesn't change that being a dress for _women_."

"You're telling me that Muggle men never wear purple."

Julie had to stifle a laugh. "Not when it comes with flowers and ruffles, no."

Higgins made a face. "Muggles are so _limited._"

"Here, come here." Julie tugged at one of the ruffles on his shoulder and pulled out her wand. "There's no way we can go about Obliviating Muggles with you looking like that; there'd be no point. Stand still, I need to Transfigure that."

Higgins pouted. "I suppose you would be Muggle-born, if you know all about Muggle dress."

"And you would be right. Stop fidgeting." Julie frowned in concentration, waving her wand over the dress.

Higgins scowled as his purple flowered dress became a charcoal-grey suit with a purple flowered tie. He examined the tie. "Thought you said Muggle men don't wear purple flowers."

Julie was just tucking her wand back into her Muggle briefcase. "They—oh, shut up." She yanked at his arm, forcing him to follow her into the trees. "Campsite registry says a family is camping here, which means they probably got a good glimpse and we'll need to sort it out. With any luck we'll be able to track them down. Hurry up."

Higgins followed, picking at the purple tie. "How do Muggles stand so much clothing?" He worked the tie free and stared at it. "What's the point of this thing?"

Julie groaned. "Oh for Merlin's sake, you really are just five years old, aren't you?" She spun Higgins to face her, whipping the tie back around his neck and tying it smartly. "There. Now stop messing with it and _come on._" She stalked off, muttering to herself. "_Here I am wandering in the forest in a pencil skirt and heels and do you see me complaining? Honestly . . ."_

In the end it wasn't hard to find the Muggles' pitch. A hammock swung between two trees, swaying slightly, while a book lay facedown on the ground. Its pages were bent and haphazard, as if it had been thrown roughly. A folding chair lay nearby, knocked to one side.

Julie pursed her lips. "Well?" she said to Higgins, and he jumped, pulling out the television aerial device. He flourished it and it spun like a compass needle in his loose grip, pointing to a dirt path leading off into the trees.

At the end of the path, they were met with loud cries. Julie swallowed. She and Higgins pushed through a thicket of trees into a meadow, in which much of the ground was bare and trampled, grass and flower stalks shredded, clods of dirt scattered from many small indentations.

In the center of the clearing sat a woman, Muggle by her clothing, clearly the source of most of the crying. Beside her crouched a Muggle man who was trying and mostly failing to comfort her. His own face was streaked with tears and he was awkwardly stroking her shoulder.

Higgins trod on a twig and both the Muggles' heads snapped up at the noise. Julie stepped forward, speaking up quickly before Higgins could put his foot in it.

"Are you . . . all right?" Fine, maybe Higgins wouldn't be the only one to put his foot in it. "What's happened?" She caught Higgins's eye and gestured emphatically for him to put the still-pulsating aerial away. He nodded, far too obviously, and slid it into his trouser pocket, the end still visible at his waist.

The Muggle woman burst into fresh tears. Julie winced. "We're with the . . . er, Ministry." Best to keep it vague which one was meant. "We're just trying to help. My name is Julie Winterson and this here is—Higgins."

"Kimberley," Higgins supplied.

Julie fought an impulse for completely inappropriate laughter. _Kimberley? _"Mr. Kimberley Higgins." She managed a heroically straight face. "We want to try to help you, and if you could tell us what's happened, it would help us do that." She edged a little closer, stumbling a little where her heel caught in one of the pockmarks in the ground. Probably from the creature's claws, if it had landed here.

The woman sniffled. The man rubbed her back. "You're going to think we're mad." His voice was quiet and strained.

"I promise you, we won't." Julie walked closer and crouched beside them, uncomfortable in her skirt. "Truthfully, we've had a lot of strange inquiries lately from a lot of different people. Nothing you can say will be too bizarre." Here was a moment where a bit of the truth would help appease the Muggles. That was something the Obliviators had to deal with a lot, she knew, getting information from naturally skeptical Muggle witnesses. If she passed her qualifying exam, she had plenty of ideas of how to overcome that issue.

The man stared at her.

"Just tell us." Julie's voice was low, as soothing as she could make it. "We won't call you mad or anything. But we need to know so we can help you."

The man stared a moment longer, then finally nodded slowly. "It's our daughter, Hermione. She's just eleven years old. She—" He gulped. "She got—carried off. By a—a thing. We found her here in the forest after she went for a walk and didn't return. We came to look for her and she was—she was with this thing. This—monster. She said it was because she had—" He shook his head. "No, I couldn't possibly . . . It's too—insane."

"It's all right," Julie said. "Don't worry about that just now. This monster, could you describe it?"

He held up his arms. "Huge. I'd say—at least fifteen or twenty feet, with great big teeth and feathered wings." He exhaled hard. "If it weren't completely _impossible_ I'd say it was a dragon."

Her pulse quickened. She kept her eyes on the Muggle man as she reached into her briefcase. She pulled out her wand, two sheets of violet Ministry memo parchment, and a self-inking quill. She thrust parchment and quill at Higgins, her eyes still trained on the Muggle, waving her hand impatiently before Higgins finally got the message. "You say it had feathered wings? Did it by chance have a head like a snake? And a long tail?" She gestured to Higgins, who fumbled with the quill before scrawling on the parchment.

The man's eyes widened. "Why yes, it did. Miss—I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name—"

"Winterson."

"Miss Winterson. Do you know what that thing was? Why it—" His voice caught. "Why it took my daughter?"

"We might," said Julie, slowly. "You said it—_took_ your daughter?" She had never heard of an Occamy behaving in such a way, but she was no Magizoologist. "It flew off with her? Could you say which way it went?" She hoped Higgins was writing this down. If a Muggle child was missing as well they would certainly need Ministry reinforcements.

"That way." The Muggle woman spoke up at last, one trembling arm pointing east. "It went that way. Please, you have to find our daughter, she's just a little girl." She started to cry again. "She must be so scared . . ."

"Don't worry, we will." Julie shifted to stand up, palming her wand. The two Muggles stood up with her. "We'll do everything we can. Could you just look at me please, Mr. . . .?"

"Granger. David," said the man. He gestured. "My wife, Diana."

"David," Julie said. She breathed. Higgins was starting to pout, having clearly realized what she was about to do and feeling left out. She shot him a reprimanding look. She had insisted on going; there was no way she was going to let Higgins mess this up. "Diana. Could you both look at me for a moment, please."

The Grangers both looked her in the eyes, puzzlement beginning to overtake their distress.

Julie raised her wand, the tip of it starting to describe a familiar motion. "Your daughter is fine. There was no monster here in this clearing. Your daughter simply lost track of time picking flowers. You'll see her soon; you'll see she's perfectly all right." She took a deep breath. "_Obliviate."_


End file.
